


Use Me (But Don't Throw Me Away)

by Stormraven24



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angry Blowjobs, Angst, Biting, Blowjobs, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fellatio, General Hux is also not a nice person, Girl Crush, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo is not a nice person, Mind Reading, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Episode VII, Pre-TFA, Rough Sex, Scratching, Sexual Fantasy, Violence, Violent Sex, accidental voyuerism, borderline abuse, loss of autonomy (sort of), memories of blood, memories of murder, memories of sexual harrassment and blackmail, platonic friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-05-24 20:06:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6165126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormraven24/pseuds/Stormraven24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lt. Daan gives Kylo Ren a new avenue for releasing his temper. Unintentional and unhealthy as it may be, she craves the times when he summons her. Emotions run high, and being part-Zeltron makes them become complicated, yet she says nothing. She'd rather be little more than a plaything/sexual punching bag if it means not being thrown away (again), even by a monster like Ren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She looks at him when she thinks he can't see. He always feels her gaze on him, the weight of it even from across a room. Every time he so much as twitches his head in her direction, she looks away. He knows she's subconsciously trying to see the man beneath the flowing robes and the eyeless mask, to reconcile the dark phantom nearby with the man who calls her to his bed. She lets her stare linger when they're alone in the aftermath and he's all but forgotten her; he allows it, but ignores it. Tonight, he decides to watch her instead. And strangely, not once does she even attempt to look at him.

Their clandestine meetings always leave her sore, always leave bruises on her oddly rosy skin (a physical trait the lieutenant inherited from her Zeltron father, her file implies). Not once does she complain, cry, beg him to stop, or even visit the infirmary to treat her wounds. She always tries to hide her pain from him while she dresses and she always almost convinces him she doesn't feel anything but satisfied pleasure. But not tonight.

It's not the rings of black-and-blue bruises around her throat and wrists, the vicious red bite marks on her shoulders, nor even the weeks-old scratch marks down her back that give Kylo Ren pause. It's the way she hesitates in putting her shirt on. The way her head bobs just slightly forward as if struggling for breath. The way she keeps her left arm as straight and still as possible while hurriedly pulling the material up.

He watches with a cruel curiosity as her body shudders violently as she fights to stay still. When had he dislocated her shoulder? Ah, it must have been towards the end when he'd pulled her arms behind her back and pushed her deeper into the bed. Perhaps the joint had popped during his orgasm when his focus was elsewhere. If she had cried out, he hadn't heard; perhaps she had screamed into the mattress when it happened? Hmm.

He takes note of the sweat that's broken out across her back and the back of her neck, no doubt the result of her current state of pain. And yet she continues dressing as quickly as her damaged arm will allow. It's commendable, really, her determination to not let her pain show, nor to let it impede her task. He imagines her face, currently turned away from him, twisted into a grimace; was her expression more angry grit or pathetic blubbering? He doesn't know for certain.

He watches her stand on shaky legs while her right hand moves to her shirt front, presumably to fasten the buttons. Once that is done, she picks up her uniform jacket from where it had been thrown. Ren tilts his head at the tiny sigh of frustration she lets out when she realizes she must either relive the pain of slipping a sleeve over her arm, or face reprimand over being out of uniform from any higher-ranking officer she may encounter on her way back to her own quarters.

He should help her put it on, at least put her shoulder back in working order. It would be the kind thing to do...

He wasn't kind. He wasn't nice. The girl made her choice to continue coming to him, and therefore had decided that she didn't want someone who was 'kind' or 'nice'. Maybe she liked the pain. If so, well, who was he to deny her? So, he remained seated in his chair where he had retreated after purging his lust.

Lieutenant Kidara Daan, jacket draped over her shoulders and her dark silver hair still in disarray, turned towards the Knight, eyes downcast. “Do you require anything else of me, my lord?”

Ren didn't miss the flatness of her tone, nor the light sheen of sweat on her forehead (a remnant of her physical exertion, or the shooting pain in her arm?). Rather than answer, he reached out with the barest tendril of the Force to brush her mind. Her left eye twitched at the intrusion (somehow she always sensed when he would rifle through her thoughts, possibly another gift of her Zeltron heritage), but she did nothing to try to stop him. As if she could regardless. Wait...well now, that was interesting. A smirk tugged at his lips. “Why, Lieutenant,” he drawled, “are you developing _feelings_ for me?”

He sensed rather than heard her quick intake of breath, but she remained otherwise unmoved. She knew better than to lie to him, so her silence spoke volumes. His steps were slow and measured as he approached, more of a saunter than a walk. “Tell me: do you envision a shared life together? A little home in the countryside, a canid or two playing with our children?” Oooh, she was getting angry. How very fascinating. Ren stared down at her bowed head when he was less than a handspan in front of her. “Such a sweet little domestic fantasy. What do you envision the wedding would look like? I'm partial to red décor myself...”

If the fire-hot glare she shot up at him didn't surprise him, the sudden expulsion of his mind from hers certainly did.  _What is this?_ He didn't attempt to re-enter her thoughts, however; the conflict raging in those slightly too-large eyes was far too intriguing. “If there is nothing else you require of me, Lord Ren,” she ground out, “permission to return to my quarters, sir.”

Such a good little soldier, requesting permission to be dismissed when she so clearly wanted to simply leave. “And if I order you to remain?”

A flicker of fear passed through her bright, mercurial eyes before being forcibly snuffed out. “Then I would obey, of course.”

Oh, but it was tempting. So very tempting to see just how far her obedience went before her personal morals and reservations took over. What would be the final straw to break her completely? Would it be a position that caused her too much pain or was too degrading? Would it be humiliating words that she would feel forced to agree with, to repeat back to him? Or would it be something small, so insignificant that he wouldn't be able to anticipate it?

But the hour was late, and his volatile emotions had been checked by his use of her body, leaving him languid and relaxed (well, more relaxed than he had been). “Of course you would,” he muttered, more to himself than to Kidara. “You may go.”

She bowed her head automatically before turning to the door, wincing as she forgot to keep her arm immobile. “You may want to get that shoulder looked at, Lieutenant.” He couldn't quite keep the smile from his voice, and apparently Kidara heard it; it was her reaction, however, that left him a might confused. She froze in her tracks, a flinch going up her back, then her shoulders and head sagged just ever-so slightly. How curious.


	2. Chapter 2

“Kida, I don't think I can do this. I'm not a medic-”

“Just shut up and keep a grip on my shoulder, all right?”

Lieutenant Lennox Adair did as his friend told him, albeit reluctantly. He'd never been good with injuries, even less so with the sight of blood (one reason he preferred a desk job to any kind of field work). Thankfully, Kida wasn't bleeding, although the unnatural angle of her arm had turned him a few shades paler. “Kida, seriously, go to the infirmary. I'll make up a cover story for you, jus-” The sickening, wet  _crack_ that ripped through the small room as Kida twisted her upper body cut him off mid-sentence. He tried not to gag as the sound replayed itself in his head a few more times. 

“Thanks,” Kida breathed. The relief in her voice was as plain as it was on her face. She carefully rolled the joint to make sure it was indeed back in its socket before stepping away and stripping off her shirt. “Hopefully that won't happen again.”

Lennox sighed through his nose. He winced at the sight of the scratches and bruises on her pink skin before she pulled on a fresh shirt. “You can't keep letting him treat you like this. You've got to talk to the General-”

“Len, enough.” He stopped. Kida was never one to raise her voice even when she was angry. The fact that she did now disturbed him almost as much as her dislocated shoulder. She buttoned her shirt as she talked. “I've already spoken to General Hux...well, rather, he spoke to me.” She paused for a beat, just long enough for Lennox to note the stiffness in her back that had nothing to do with her arm. “I've been reassigned as 'personal liaison to Lord Ren'.”

Lennox went still, then exploded like a grenade. “'Personal liaison'?! Hux assigned you to be that monster's slave?! As in, officially?”

Kidara let him continue to rant about “military-sanctioned sexual slavery” until her uniform was now back in proper order along with her hair. He kept fuming even while she trimmed the longest parts at the front to just above her collar; she'd been neglecting her hair in light of recent events. Most wouldn't have even noticed the slightly-too-long strands, but General Hux and especially Captain Phasma would. When her room was finally quiet again she looked up at Lennox's reflection in her mirror. “Got it all out of your system, Len?”

His big, dark eyes lifted to meet hers, sympathy and compassion practically flowing from him; sometimes she wondered if his emotions were so palpable because of her minor empath abilities, or if he was just that much of an open book. In the end, it didn't really matter; she was just glad that someone cared about her that much. “Why you, Kida? Why this? I mean, I don't like it period, but...” Thin fingers raked over his buzzcut, a nervous habit he'd had since before their Academy days. “ _Why?_ ”

Kidara had long since trained herself to speak about personal, uncomfortable things as logically, plainly, and clinically as possible; it was a way to distance herself from the discomfort and the inevitable pain. She gently pulled him down to sit beside her on her bed, keeping a firm grip on his hand (she wasn't sure if it was more for his benefit or for hers). “Have you noticed how less frequent repairs to consoles and equipment have been lately?” He nodded. “When was the last time you heard other techs complaining about Lord Ren's tantrums destroying their work and forcing them to start over?”

Lennox looked away, his brow creasing as he thought back. “Not for nearly a month...” His eyes widened in horrified yet awe-filled realization. “That's when you started disappearing for long stretches.”

She swallowed, but nodded. “Yeah. It started by accident. I just happened to be the closest person at the time. And...” She had to breathe a bit deeper before she could continue. “Well, I guess I still have trouble hiding when I'm attracted to someone. He sensed it, I was there, and...yeah.”

Although he was clearly uncomfortable, Lennox pressed on. “Did he...did he hurt you? The first time?”

“Yes. But I liked it, in a way. It was like I could feel the anger and frustration leaving him by the time we were done. He felt better by hurting me. I wanted to keep him feeling better. I think. I guess.” She covered her face with her hands, confusing herself the more she talked. “I don't know.”

A hand rubbed small circles on her back in an attempt to comfort her. “When did Hux...'reassign' you?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“But you kept going back to Ren before then. Did he force you?”

“No. I mean, not really.” Self-consciousness crept back into her breast. “Promise you won't think I'm a complete weirdo?”

“No more than usual.” The light crack made them both smile for a too-brief moment. “I swear, Kida.”

“It's like...like some kind of spice. You know it's wrong, but you can't stop, and you're not sure you want to. Logically, you know it's just going to end badly, but the way you feel during and just after...it's addicting.” She darted her gaze away, ashamed of herself. “He didn't even need to summon me most times. I could just feel this niggling in the back of my mind and I knew he was about to lose his temper. And it was either set back construction another six months for every piece of equipment he totalled, or let him have another avenue of catharsis.”

“Wait, wait. Why are _Lord Ren_ 's tantrums your responsibility? You're not his babysitter!”

“It's not as simple as that.” Kidara stared off into space, reflecting, analyzing. “It's not as simple as being a loose cannon or having anger management issues. It's something deeper than that. Something broken. Concealing it with rage and Force tricks and intimidation is draining.”

“And you thought you could fix it for him? Kida-”

“Don't.” There was sudden steel in her voice that stopped him short. “Don't lecture me. I'm not trying to fix anyone or anything. I just...I thought I could help, at first. I thought it was working. I thought...” She didn't dare finish that sentence. Not after what Ren had said to her not twenty minutes ago. “At any rate, looks like I don't have much of a choice anymore.”

Lennox stared at her, aghast that she could think her own desires and her own will so insignificant. “Yes, you do! Tell Hux what Ren's doing to you. There's no way he'd let this continue if he knew-”

“He does know. Or, at least, he doesn't care. He noticed that Ren had taken some kind of interest in me, and that it coincided with the decline in destroyed equipment. So, he ordered me to become his liaison to ensure that his outbursts remained at a minimum. Which means being at Lord Ren's disposal in any way he sees fit.”

Lennox didn't miss the way her voice became flat and matter-of-fact. She only did that when she had to relay something she really didn't want to. She saw the way he was looking at her, as if she had just been ordered to the front lines and this was their final goodbye. She knew that feeling of helplessness too well. A smile that didn't reach her eyes forced its way onto her lips. “It's not so bad, really. This time was...out of the ordinary, but it's okay. I'm still doing my part to aid the First Order. That's all I can ask for.”

He knew that was a pile of bantha poodoo. Kidara had a bad habit of putting herself last too many times. It was one thing to be loyal and make sacrifices for the Order and her CO's, but entirely another to be forced to give her body and her will over to a madman in a mask. What made it even worse was that she felt so utterly powerless to change it, and how helpless it made him feel to witness it. But nothing he could say would change her mind now; Kida could be stubborn to a fault if it meant obeying a direct order.

So he would suffer in silence, just as he knew she would. Just like the marks she bore now, she would certainly bear more at Ren's hands. He just hoped he would be there in time with plenty of bacta and a supportive shoulder if she needed it. He made himself give her a small smile, wrapping an arm around her waist and touching his forehead to her temple. “I just want you to be safe, Kida.”

She leaned into the touch, a sad type of smile on her face. “I know.”


	3. Chapter 3

It had taken Kidara weeks to work up the courage to approach Captain Phasma on her own. Not only did she worry that the Captain wouldn't take her request seriously because of her new 'role', but the woman was damn intimidating. But Kida admired her. The Captain was everything she wished she could be herself: strong, commanding, confident, objectively caring yet detached from personal relationships. It was that admiration that had Kidara now standing before the chromium-armored soldier.

The urge to avert her gaze was nearly overwhelming, but Kidara remained firm. If she showed such weakness now, Phasma would think her truly hopeless. Her training kicked in and kept her back ramrod straight, her breathing steady, her eyes on the visor portion of the Captain's ever-present helmet. She hadn't outright refused yet, so that meant her silence was one of consideration rather than disbelief. Kidara waited.

“Report to me in the training room in one hour,” the Captain said suddenly, startling the Lieutenant with the unexpectedness. “Wear something comfortable.”

That was all she said before she walked away, but it was more than enough to leave Kidara frozen in both joy and anxiousness. Training with Captain Phasma! The thought replayed in her head as she practically sprinted back to her quarters to change, followed by no small amount of trepidation: what if even the Captain couldn't mold her into a stronger person?

A sharp shake of her head chased the unwanted thought away. If Phasma had even the slightest doubt of her own abilities, she wouldn't have agreed to train Kidara. So, the lieutenant kept her mind on getting into her most comfortable and practical outfit and making it down to the training room as soon as possible.

* * *

 

It had been during her fourth session with the Captain that she felt that tingle in the back of her mind again. Lord Ren was on the verge of losing his temper again, wherever he was on the base.  _He can wait_ , Kida thought bitterly. She was rather occupied with the trooper pressing her into the mat, his knee in the center of her chest.

“You are a slight woman, Lieutenant,” Captain Phasma's oddly soothing voice called out. “Your opponents will more than likely always be bigger and stronger than you. Use those advantages against them. Turn them into weaknesses.”

Kidara darted her eyes over her training partner, at his barely-concealed smirk at having her so easily beaten. That was all it took for her to make up her mind; it was a dirty move, but as Phasma herself had told her on Day One, in a fight for your life, there is no such thing as a fair or unfair move. The trooper's arrogance was his biggest weakness, not his superior strength or size. And in his arrogance, he had left her hands free, watching her struggle to pry him off of her sternum. The fingers of her left hand curled and stiffened just before she jabbed at his inner thigh with her knuckles, right at his femoral artery.

His breath escaped in a  _whoosh_ just as he began to fall to one side. Kidara used her new leverage to wrap her legs around his hips and throw him the rest of the way. For good measure, she remained astride him, keeping her weight high towards his center of gravity, and gripped his throat in a promise to rip out his trachea if he moved.

“Enough.”

Kidara shook her head at the word, the command behind it irrefutable. At the same time, she realized what exactly she had been thinking not a moment ago. Ripping out someone's throat wasn't like her, not even in private fantasies when hardheaded officials and politicians tried to dance around her as if she didn't understand a word they said (she'd not become a xenolinguisitcs expert by virtue of her pretty face). At most she'd only just thought about something falling from the sky to smack them in the head. Never anything violent.

She scrambled off the trooper, now clutching his thigh where she'd jabbed him, and tried to trace the thought back to its source. Given the increased tingling in her mind and the newly-developed pressure at the base of her skull, it had to be only Lord Ren's doing. Insistent, impatient man.

Kidara's reverie stopped when a large hand appeared in front of her face. She looked up to find it attached to Phasma herself, and did her best to keep from blushing when she grasped the warm, callused hand. The Captain pulled her to her feet as if she weighed nothing at all. “Very good,” she said flatly. “You're improving quickly, Lieutenant.” Now she was certain she did blush at the compliment. Praise in any form from Captain Phasma was rare, never handed out idly nor indulgently.

“Thank you, Captain,” she breathed, thankful she could attribute the thinness of her voice and the reddening pallor of her face to her exertion on the mat than anything else. 

“Tomorrow you'll be against a single opponent. On your own. You're dismissed.”

The words were said without emotion, but Kidara knew a warning when she heard one: if she failed to take down her opponent without interference from the Captain, she would be a disappointment as a student. That was the absolute  _last_ thing she ever wanted to be, especially to someone she so admired.

Kidara's buzzing joy over the praise and subsequent worry over her test tomorrow were quickly snuffed out by the keening sound of her comm coming from where she'd stashed her shoes and a towel against the wall. She didn't need to look at the display to know who was hailing her. “Sir,” she answered as evenly as she could manage.

“ _Now._ ” 

Oh, how she hated herself for shivering at the growl of that word. Despite how her autonomy had been taken away from her and how the man cared not a wit about her beyond fulfilling his own needs, she couldn't help being attracted to him in more ways than one. She even liked the pain he inflicted on her...though she desperately wished that when he was spent and his rage had been calmed that he would soothe it away before their next meeting.

The unbidden thought was hurriedly shoved away. Things like that were no longer an option for her. She was at Lord Ren's mercy, and in no position to request, let alone demand, anything. She forced herself to not think about it as she gathered her things and left the training room. She had a duty to fulfill.  _For the First Order._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've said it before and I'll say it again: anyone and everyone has a crush on Captain Phasma. Gay, straight, ace, human, non-human. EVERYONE. :3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for smut and angst and feels and more smut! This was a difficult section to write because reasons.

Ren was well aware of how he was pacing like a caged beast. He even looked the part without his helmet, cloak, and the majority of his other clothes. Anger at yet another ineffectual meeting with his Master (with that damnable General in audience, no less) roiled under his skin. Snoke still believed him unready to progress in his training, though offered no elaboration as to why. He felt forcibly stagnated, like a charging rancor halted by a mountain that just happened to be in its path. And for Hux to be privileged to Snoke's disapproval...

A light above exploded in a shower of sparks as his fury found an outlet. He quickly clamped down on it, shaking with the effort of holding back that flood, before he did more damage. Hux didn't need another reason to go running to the Supreme Leader with tales of why the base still wasn't completed. Where in the Seven Hells of the Sith was that lieutenant?!

Ren snarled aloud just before the chime to his door rang out. The barest thought forced the door open even as he crossed the floor to it in three long strides. A hand closed around the lieutenant's upper arm and pulled her inside. He swallowed her sound of surprise with a bruising, claiming kiss as he drove her back against the wall. She weighed next to nothing in his arms when he lifted her so as not to develop a cramp in his neck. The pressure of her thighs gripping his hips and the sting of her nails biting into his shoulders fueled the fire burning under his skin, slowly beginning to replace his anger with arousal.

“Where were you?” he rumbled against the soft spot just under her chin. He didn't miss how she bucked against him when he nipped that spot none too gently; his hands tightened on her hips in instinctive response.

“Indisposed,” she breathed through a gasp.

One hand latched around her right wrist and slammed it into the wall above her head. “Is that defiance I hear, Lieutenant?” Why did the mere thought of her challenging him make his loins ache? His teeth closed around a small patch of flesh above the high neck of her shirt to stifle his moan.

“No, my lord.”

Too many layers. Too many clothes. He needed her skin, needed to see his marks on that dusty pink flesh, to see where he could leave new ones. It took every ounce of restraint he had left to not simply rip the shirt from her body, flinging it to the side with something near distaste. The standard-issue binding that wrapped her chest quickly followed before he surged forward again...and froze.

“These are not mine.” Ren traced his fingertips over the colorful blotches that dotted her chest, her sides, her arms. New rage, fresh and red-hot rose in his chest the more he examined those foreign marks. “Who?” _Who dares to lay hands to this woman? Who dares touch what is mine?_

“Several people, my lord.” His eyes snapped up to hers at those words. Surely she was attempting a joke, or was it scorn? No, there was no lie or ill intent from her in the Force. Luckily for her, she quickly elaborated when she recognized the heat of his gaze for what it was. “Combat training, with Captain Phasma and her troops.”

Ah. That certainly wasn't an explanation he was expecting, but it was better than the alternatives. The rumble from his chest was one of acceptance, though the sight of another's marks on that flushed skin still filled him with a possessiveness that left a sour feeling in his gut. However, under those new bruises was something new. Dense muscle was beginning to form on her previously-thin arms; even her thighs felt stronger now than they had last time they had been in a similar position. Well, Ren certainly wasn't going to complain about her newfound definition, but he'd have to do something about those blasphemous marks. _Later. Not now._

The lieutenant silenced a gasp of surprise when he abruptly pulled her away from the wall. Her hands immediately buried themselves in his hair at the loss of support behind her. He breathed in her scent (sweat and salt and heat and something beneath all of that, sweet yet sharp), let himself enjoy the way her quick breaths danced over his face and neck. He dropped her unceremoniously onto the bed before ordering, “On your knees. Face the wall.” Those too-large eyes stared at him for a half-beat too long, but she did as she was told. _Good little soldier._

A groan threatened to escape his lips at the sight of bruises and bite marks, all in varying stages of healing. Those scratches, though. They came from his fingers, but he had not planned on making them in the first place. They had come into existence during a rather intense rendezvous with the lieutenant and all of his fury and lust and desperation for their absence had stripped him of his control for just a moment. His release then had been hard and violent, and at the time digging his blunt nails into the forgiving flesh of her back had helped keep his mind and soul from flying apart. _Weakness._ Of course, Daan had not once complained about them or the pain that had surely accompanied the broken skin. It was after that 'session' that Ren had begun to think that the quiet little officer had more strength than even she herself knew. How far could he push her before that strength snapped?

The combination of that thought, her willingness to do whatever he desired, and the way her pulse pounded faster and harder against his palm when he closed a hand over her throat chased away the remnants of his initial rage until they were nothing but a memory. His curiosity had taken over, along with the suddenly-very pressing needs of his body; the sight of naked, willing flesh and the sound of her quiet moan affected him more than he would like.

Ren marveled at how very small and fragile the lieutenant seemed under his large hand. It would be all too easy to crush her windpipe, to snap her neck, to rip out her throat. He wondered if she realized that as well. Well, he would remove any misconception and doubt. “You know I could kill you without a second thought right now.”

“Yes, my lord,” came her broken whisper. Another moan, louder than the last, erupted from her when his fingers tightened at the acknowledgment.

She couldn't see him lick his lips before leaning down to her ear. “Are you not afraid?”

Oh, the shiver that ripped through her body then was delicious. A shiver of fright tended to start out more subtly and last far longer. No, this was quick and hard and accompanied by the slightest arch of her back, no doubt mindlessly seeking out his hips behind her. This was one of arousal, hot and fast and all-consuming. What a curious minx this woman was, to be turned on when confronted with her own mortality. “Of course I'm afraid of dying.”

His hand remained steadfast around her throat as he crawled onto the bed behind her. The press of his bare chest to her equally naked back drew an achingly erotic groan from her, and a heady exhale from him when her shapely backside pressed back into his crotch. Mmm, she was eager tonight, wasn't she. His free hand slithered around her waist, taking care to brush his thumb along the curves of her breasts, then slipped his fingers under the waistband of her loose-fitting pants to grasp her hipbone. There was still some distance between them; that certainly wouldn't do. A swift pull of his arms had her flush against him from chest to groin. A sound that reminded him of a whining akk dog came from the lieutenant, and he grinned.

“Do you fear _me_ , my little soldier?” Ren was calculating in his movements now: a firm yet still hold on her neck and hip, letting out a single breath against her shoulder to watch the goosebumps rise on her skin, ghosting his lips over the sensitive flesh as he spoke. The desire to have her trembling and writhing beneath him before he even truly touched her became overwhelming. At least it seemed like he was already halfway there.

Daan didn't respond straight away. Was she even paying attention? Ren sank his teeth into the meat of her shoulder then, rolling his hips up at the same time to stroke his hardening cock against her backside. She moaned, he grunted: her hands had shot back to his thighs and gripped them with a strength belied by her delicate fingers. “Yes!” she finally breathed. “I do fear you, Lord Ren.”

Something felt _different_. She was telling the truth, but she didn't fear him for his physical strength or even his power with the Force. It was that metaphysical current that told him she feared him for an entirely different reason. It would have been too easy to simply look into her mind and take what he wanted. He wanted to hear it from her lips. The tip of his nose nuzzled the soft flesh behind her ear, earning him another delicious shiver. “Why do you fear me?”

She froze. Even her labored breath stopped for a moment. How curious. Then, something even more surprising: if he'd not been so attuned to her, so focused on her every movement, Ren would have missed how she seemed to deflate in his hold. The longest strands of her dark silver hair brushed the side of his thumb as her head tipped forward just so. One firm jerk of his hand on her throat brought her upright again. “Why” -a scant touch of his lips to her earlobe- “do you” -a firmer press to the outer shell of her ear, breathing out through his nose to watch her shiver again- “fear me?” The arm across her torso tightened until she let out a squeak of pain. “Answer me, Lieutenant.”

“You will think me a fool.” Her voice was thready, watery. Now he was even more curious.

“I will think you more of a fool if you try to evade me.” He released her throat in favor of lighting his fingertips at her temple, then gently through her hair to press into her scalp. There was no kindness in his touch, only the threat of forcibly taking the answer from her mind if she would not willingly give it. “Answer me.”

Daan hesitated only long enough to take a breath, which he allowed, then began slowly, quietly. “I have only ever been with two other people in the same manner as with you, my lord. Both times...both times ended badly, through my own fault.” Another breath, this one shakier than the last. “They meant more to me than I meant to them. And I was too blinded by my emotions to see it. I gave them power over my heart, and I was burned both times.” A trembling hand left his thigh to reach towards his arm, then quickly dropped as she apparently thought better of touching him. “I am under no illusions that our...our arrangement is anything more than what it is...” A drop of something warm and wet landed on his forearm to trail down to his wrist. “...but I cannot deny...my attraction to you...sir. I fear the power you hold over me, that when you tire of me...that I will not have grown tired of you. Sir.”

Well now. That was interesting. Very interesting indeed. Ren stared at the back of her head for a long moment, letting the Force just barely touch her mind in search of any lie, any deceit. Of course, there was none. The lieutenant was surprisingly honest for an officer, even moreso for one stationed on Starkiller Base. A small part of him admired that; the larger part wanted to sneer at her for it. Others worked their way through the ranks through deception, through connections, through bribery, all eager for more power so as to feel important. Daan, however...how in space did she make it to Lieutenant without relying on any of those things? _Rank by merit alone. Admirable._ There was definitely much more to this woman than he'd initially thought.

“Lord Ren?”

Her soft, thin voice cut through his musings to bring him back to the present. “What will you do when I 'tire of you'?”

She flinched. She had said the words first, but apparently hearing them from someone else made them all too sharp. “I...I will wish for you to find someone or something that you will not tire of, my lord.”

The hand on her head swiftly grasped her chin and turned her to meet his gaze. Bright blue eyes looked back at him through a veil of unshed tears. His gut clenched instinctively at the sight, the feeling chased away by years of training in the Dark Side. In those watery eyes he saw the truth: she was ashamed of her emotions. In his presence, they were a weakness. The were a pipe dream that existed only to torment her.

He rationalized the kiss he gave her then, telling himself it was more to wipe that look off her heart-shaped face than to chase away the unpleasant sensation that had developed in his breast. His hand fell back to her throat, wrapping his long fingers around the pliant column of flesh until she loosed a gasp of pleasure into his mouth. Everything fell away at that sound: his consideration of her emotions, his own response to their revelation, the way her small voice had sounded so fragile and sad...

Ren strengthened the kiss by sinking his teeth into her plump lower lip and sucking on it until the lieutenant let out a high whine and rolled her hips back once again. Good. Now they could return to the business at hand without any further...complications.

Just in case, the Knight slipped his other hand further under the waist of her pants, quickly trailing his fingertips through the soft curls at the apex of her trembling thighs before reaching the hot, wet flesh just below. The contact was more than enough to have her hips surging into his hand, and his own cock hard once more. He didn't bother working her slowly into a frenzy; one finger slid easily through her folds, soon joined by a second until she was actively thrusting against his touch.

Withdrawing his hand earned him a sound of disappointment that vibrated through her throat against his palm. He studied his slick fingers for a moment, briefly mesmerized by the way they glistened in the dim light, before licking the wetness from one. Seeing the flare of lust in Daan's eyes, he pressed the other against her mouth in a silent command. The thought of tying her up to have his way with her flashed across his mind when her lips closed over his fingertip before taking the entire digit into her mouth. Of course, securing her limbs the way he liked would take too long. _Next time,_ he promised himself. Right now, he wanted her huffing his name, crying out at the pleasurable pain he gifted her, and taking every inch of him into her lava-hot body.

Not a word of protest escaped her when he pushed her down onto her forearms, nor when he hurriedly pulled the last of her clothing off to leave her perfectly poised and dripping wet before him. Ren couldn't help to stop the groan the sight elicited from him.

Although this 'liaison' wasn't as rough as their usual encounters, it was by no means gentle. Ren fully intended to leave her with new bruises in perfect replicas of his fingers at the very least. The arch and tremble of her back under him drew his attention to the scars he had put there weeks ago. One hand left the soft flesh of her waist to slide up to them. Daan jerked and gasped when he matched his fingertips to one set of marks and carefully dragged them down the still-healing skin.

Her ragged, breathy “Lord Ren!” was more than enough to send him over the edge. Red edged his vision before he fell forward, one hand bracing his weight above her while the other shot out to grasp her throat, and closed his teeth and lips around one of the lines. The salt of her sweat covered his tongue. The sharpness of her high-pitched cry of shock pierced his eardrums. So close, yet not close enough.

“Again,” he growled into her ear, biting at the shell of it until she shuddered. She obeyed instantly, forcing his name past those delectable lips. “Who do you belong to?”

Before the last word left his mouth, the first sign of her impending release hit: a violent shake of her shoulders followed closely by the sharp angling of her hips back into his. For yet another time that night, Daan managed to surprise him when she turned her head to meet his gaze and panted, “I'm yours, my lord.” A keening whine ripped from deep in her chest at the same time her innermost muscles began to flutter and clench around his cock.

It took more control than Ren would have liked to admit to still his thrusts, leaving only the swollen head of his cock resting inside her. He smoothed a palm over a bruise on her lower ribs, one that someone else had left on her dusty skin. Daan cried out in both protest and pain, her release so close yet denied by the Knight, the way the heel of his palm pressed harshly into the bruise. “Never let me see another's marks on you, my little soldier,” he growled.

Her response was instantaneous, if pleading. “Yes, my lord.” A hard breath and she added, “My body is yours, no other's.”

_Such obedience should be rewarded_. A hard grip on her hips and three more brutal thrusts had her practically screaming as he granted her her orgasm. The clench of her around his cock had Ren coming not far behind as well, a strangled shout and a momentary shudder signaling his own release. The lieutenant had learned in the beginning that she was not to move before him when his anger and lust had been spent. Aside from the aftershocks and heavy breaths still wracking her kneeling body, she remained perfectly still, just as he'd instructed her as those weeks ago.

An idea came to him when he leaned down to lick a line of sweat from the back of her neck, drawn in by the way the droplets snaked around the curve of her throat to drip onto the sheets below. One hand on her hip, the other on the dip of her lower back, Ren pulled himself out of her inviting heat and made himself comfortable on his bed. “Come here, Lieutenant,” he commanded softly.

The officer had to have been sore after all the physical exertion she'd been subjected to over the day. But she obeyed nonetheless, her movements careful and slow so as not to lose her already precarious balance. She began to crawl to him between his legs, but Ren had other ideas that didn't include _cuddling_. Her shoulders seemed so small and delicate under his hands. Conversely, her lips seemed even fuller and softer under his thumb when he brushed it over the tender flesh. He let himself enjoy the way she looked so deliciously fucked (her eyes gone dark with arousal, the lids heavy in the aftermath, her cheeks glowing a darker pink than usual, her usually orderly hair an absolute mess) before he said, “Put that pretty mouth to good use, if you please.”

Understanding sparked to life in those lust-blown eyes after a beat, heat and mild disgust mixing together in their depths. But not refusal. She merely gave him a look, then positioned herself between his knees. Ren let his head fall back and his eyes slide closed at the first touch of her tongue to his cock, his fingers tangling in her hair to control her movements. She shuddered once at the taste of his and her releases, but not once did she complain or make any sound of protest. It took only moments before every drop was licked from his shaft, though he hadn't counted on the lieutenant to have a trick up her sleeve: just as he lifted his head to look down at her to issue his next command, her own eyes met his, and her plush lips closed around the tip of his cock and gave a gentle suck.

The sensation alone was enough to have him half hard again already, but it was the fire in those large eyes that truly made him pause. There was durasteel in those cerulean depths, as if she were the one in charge rather than the one being told what to do. How fascinating, this sudden change in demeanor. He devoured her gasp of pain when he dragged her up his body by her hair, but given the way she melted into the harsh kiss she didn't mind the discomfort in the slightest.

It must have been the heat of her flesh pressed so close to him, or the feeling of the indents his teeth had made on her shoulder earlier marking her as his, or simply her complete submission that made him say his next words: “You're staying here tonight.”

Daan pulled back in surprise. “But...I'm due for training with Captain Phasma in the morn-”

Ren gripped her tighter before she could continue, burying his face into the side of her neck and mouthing at the sensitive, discolored skin. “Not anymore. I'll handle the Captain. You're not going anywhere until I tell you otherwise.” Just for good measure, he nipped at her earlobe and traced the full shell of her ear with the tip of his nose. “Understood?”

Her hands clutched at his arms, body arching into him as he nuzzled her (in what he hoped was a menacing rather than tender way). “As you wish, my lord,” she eventually breathed, loose strands of his hair stirring in the words' wake. Was that a sigh of pleasure or of resignation that followed? It didn't matter either way; she was staying, so what did the reason matter.

Just in case she got any ideas, Ren made sure to roll her to the side of the bed closest to the wall, making himself a barrier between her and the door. Although, she didn't seem in any rush to try and get up. “Go to sleep,” he ordered softly, “before I decide I'm not wholly satisfied and take you again.”


	5. Chapter 5

It didn't take long for the lieutenant to slip into an exhausted sleep. Ren, however, found himself alert and thoughtful as he usually did after sex. Daan's slumbering heat beside him was unusually soothing, but he was unable to join her in what looked like such a peaceful rest.

The woman had surprised him more than once this night. He thought he knew all there was to know about her, at least what was important or relevant. As it turned out, there was a strange combination of fragility and strength behind those unnervingly large eyes. Strong enough to bear the brunt of his heightened passions without complaint, yet fearing loneliness and rejection.

Looking at her now, even though she was turned away from him, Ren could admit that the lieutenant was an attractive female specimen. Those with Zeltron heritage usually inherited that beauty no matter the other parentage, but Daan also possessed an edge to her features that made her wholly unique. Not to mention the overlarge eyes. Unbidden curiosity about her maternal lineage sprang forth in his mind as he reminisced about those enrapturing eyes, so full of anger when he'd taunted her about her feelings towards him, so full of compliance and lust just an hour or so ago. There was passion under that rosy flesh, to be certain.

All thought halted when Daan suddenly rolled to face him, throwing a leg over his and gently wrapping an arm around his chest to rest her hand on his jaw. Apparently unsatisfied, she shifted closer until her cheek touched his shoulder. And she was still dead asleep. Ren could do nothing but freeze, confusion threading its way into his brain to mix with the strange sensation of pleasantness her proximity stirred in his breast. What was she doing? What should  _he_ do?

He  _should_ push her away. He  _should_ wake her up and send her on her way. What he  _did_ was simply look down at that sleeping face and wonder what she was dreaming.

Even in sleep, he saw her left brow twitch just once when he reached through the Force and into her mind.

_The two of them reclining in bed, his head on her stomach, her fingers gently carding through his hair, smiles of contentment on their faces..._

_A brush of his hand across her lower back as he passes her, a delighted shiver racing up her spine at the promise of more to come later..._

_His arms bound above his head, her smirking lips wrapped around his swollen cock, ragged moans of desperation spilling from his mouth as he begs her to finish him off..._

_Her long fingers tracing a bite mark on his neck, her own brand on his skin to match the ones he's given her..._

_Muffled moans and grunts tearing from their throats as he takes her in a deserted hallway, his thrusts hard and deep and exquisitely painful, her cry of “harder!” whispered harshly against his temple..._

_Her hands wrapped around his neck in a loose hold, one thumb running down the column of his throat over his Adam's apple, down to the hollow between his collarbones, his pulse thundering under her fingers as he urges her to continue..._

_A soft kiss pressed to her lips to wake her, lazy satisfaction and warm happiness in her eyes when they open, “good morning, my lord”, “good morning, my love”..._

Daan shifted and let out a sound of displeasure when he jerked out of her mind, not jostling her enough to wake her, thankfully; he didn't want her (or anyone) to see the shock that surely painted his expression. The lieutenant had indeed cultivated feelings for him, despite his less-than-kind treatment of her and her own self-assurance that he did not return them (he had felt that from her more than once). What shocked him the most, however, was that, at least in her subconscious, she had no desire to change him into some simpering, lovesick fool. She wanted him to be rough, to manhandle her and mark her and blur the line between pleasure and pain, but she also wanted to reciprocate. Her dreams were marked not only by images and near-physical sensations, but emotions; she wanted a certain kind of affection, and to give that affection freely in return. The concept may have been foreign to the Knight, but there was no negating or rationalizing it: Daan wanted to give and receive affection...with  _him._

Ren lay there for a long time simply staring at her bowed head. He'd not moved her hand from his face, nor her leg from over his. There was something...empowering about her unconscious fantasies, about the way she was wrapped around him. Everyone wanted him for something they could use: Snoke for his abilities with the Force, Hux for his bloodlust and brutal tactics to get what the First Order needed, even Skywalker had only seen him as a trophy of sorts.

Daan, however...if he took her dreams at face value, she simply wanted him. His touch, his company, his possession, his...heart.

No. No, that was something he had forsaken long ago. His heart belonged to the Dark now, to the rage and the power he wielded as his sword and shield. He belonged only to Snoke and the Dark, not to this half-alien (full alien?) nobody. She was merely a body to him, an alternate means to purge his emotions to keep Hux off his back. He'd put a stop to this nonsense as soon as possible.

Later.

Right now, a quiet yet insistent part of his mind was reminding him that selfishness was not only allowed by the Dark Side, but encouraged. And there was no denying how good warm, soft flesh covered in his marks felt at his side at the moment. He'd keep her there until morning.


	6. Chapter 6

It's nearly three weeks when Ren feels himself on the brink of snapping again. That time hasn't been quiet, so to speak, but he'd forced himself to take out his boiling-over aggression on training dummies and intense combat simulations. They'd only occupied him for so long. He'd taken to pacing the halls earlier when he'd felt the familiar presence that had taken the brunt of his emotions over the past few months. He'd barged into her room, finding her sitting at her desk with several datapads and holos open and running (with what, he didn't know nor did he care). She'd jumped at the intrusion, her naturally wide eyes going even wider at the sight of him. Ren didn't bother with pleasantries, not even bothering to waste his energy telling her to turn off the devices and take off her clothes. He'd simply stormed over to her and began tearing at the fabrics keeping her flesh from his eyes and hands. She didn't protest.

It's unusual for him to remain this long after they've finished, let alone find himself in her private quarters rather than the reverse. By now he'd be back in his own quarters and tending to other things. Instead, he finds himself staring at the long, graceful line of her neck, committing the sight of her lips parting and closing just so slightly with each breath and the rise and fall of her chest to memory. He focuses on the newest darkening bruise on her shoulder, a perfect imprint of his teeth visible for now (the indents would disappear shortly, covered by blacks and blues and purples when it began the long healing process). The marks his fingers had left on the points of her hips, those beautiful curved hips, will darken as well over the next few days, and his chest clenches in delight at the thought. He notices the way her skin shimmers with sweat in the dim light, like she's been covered in stardust. The sound of her harsh breathing is like a symphony to his ears. She's worn out, exhausted, surely sore, and yet wholly satisfied.

There's less than a handswidth of space between them, her bed considerably smaller and more narrow than his own. He can feel her heat rolling from her in waves, as if she were a living, breathing sun bathing him in her warmth. As cold as his private rooms can be (and not so much from a physically low temperature as from the lack of her presence, though he refuses to admit the latter), he finds her heat almost stifling. And yet he craves it.

Until she carefully turns her head just a few degrees towards him. Until her eyelids flutter open (he tries to ignore the way those long lashes brush her cheeks as they do). Until sparkling yet hazy blue eyes look at him as if he weren't the monster that haunted the nightmares of the weaker-willed peons throughout the base. Until she gives him a look so full of innocence and something he dare not give a label to it hits like a physical blow.

It's when the corners of her lovely mouth begin to turn up in a slow smile that he leaves the bed to locate his clothes. The fabric is uncomfortable, almost painful when he pulls it over his sweat-covered skin, but he easily dismisses the discomfort. It's when he sits on the very edge of the bed to pull his boots on last that he feels the mattress shift. He knows without looking that she's sitting upright; he can almost feel her breath on the back of his neck even though, despite the cramped quarters, she is too far away for such a thing to be true. He tries not to think about what expression she must be wearing now, trying to hurry up with his boots before-

“You don't have to go.”

Four little words. So inconsequential. So softly spoken in the darkness. There's no just cause for his hackles to rise when she whispers them, perhaps partially hoping he truly hadn't heard, and yet they do just the same. It's the only way he knows how to react. If one does not fear him or hate him, his only viable avenue to deal with them is to become angry. She does neither, and so he does.

“Hoping I might be seen leaving your quarters in the morning like a rent boy, Lieutenant?” He finally finishes with his boots and stands to his full height, turning to face her head-on.

A catch develops in his chest at the sight that greets him. Her eyes have gone wide in surprise, her lips are just barely parted, and her long fingers cease fidgeting with each other as his words sink in. She blinks several times then averts her eyes as her shoulders begin to hunch, as if she can disappear into herself under his harsh gaze. Her hands clasp hard at themselves possibly to keep them from shaking, or reaching out to touch him. “I...I didn't mean anything like that...”

He pushes on that weak spot. “Oh? And what did you mean, girl?”

She keeps her gaze down, her spine curved in a display of complete submission. “I...just...” He watches her struggle for words, knowing that his silence unnerves her further with each passing second. “I thought...” _I don't want to be alone. I want to ease your loneliness, too._

She doesn't say the words aloud, but they're practically screaming at him through the Force. Stupid girl, he tells himself. He is the Master of the Knights of Ren. Such a mundane thing as 'loneliness' is nothing to him. He leans down, invading her space until his eyes are boring into hers mere centimeters away. (Had she always had those flecks of green in her eyes? Or those rings of gold outlining the irises?) She is too terrified to look away now...but not of his physical prowess. “You thought,” he begins slowly, menacingly quiet, “that I needed your comfort? That I am as weak as you in your desire for  _affection_ ?” He nearly spits the word in her face, flinging it from his mouth like the vile thing it is. “You thought that I have any desire of you beyond your body?” He forces as much disgust into his gaze when he looks down at her exposed body; she notices it, of course, and pulls the sheet up to cover her breasts (those beautiful breasts he had not ten minutes ago been lavishing with attention that had had her arching and moaning and begging beneath him). “You understand that, despite your rank, as a non-human you are nothing more to many in the Order than a pleasure whore?” She almost crumbles at that. He sees the tears well in her eyes, obscuring those green flecks and gold rings behind a watery veil. He pushes on. “No one so much as blinks at the thought of someone like you being used. It is nothing against me if you are seen leaving my quarters at my whim.”

She cuts him off before he can lob more degrading words at her. “Yes, sir.” The shaky acquiescence in those words makes the catch in his chest grow until his heart beats almost painfully against his ribs. And yet, her tears still do not fall. “I apologize for my impertinence, sir. It won't happen again.”

He straightens and reaches for his helmet (he doesn't stop to consider how much easier it is to hide behind the metal than to maintain his long-dispersed anger). “See that it doesn't.”

It takes him only a few minutes to reach his own quarters. He flings his helmet and most of his clothes away before they can suffocate him completely. In the weeks since he'd started this little affair with the lieutenant, he's come to find his anger shortlived in her presence. It's become more and more difficult to keep up his temper when her very nearness, nay, the mere thought of her is more than enough to calm him. It's...so very confusing. All he can remember (wants to remember) of his life is rage and fury harnessed and sharpened into weapons, the only tools he's ever needed to handle whatever this life threw at him.

And yet...

A sudden brush across his mind distracts him from his thoughts. At first he's thankful for it, then startled; who besides his Master is able to accomplish such a thing? He follows the sensation to its source, shocked by what he finds at its end.

_-just a body, nothing more-_

_-done it again, kriffing Zeltron empathy, making me think he could ever-_

_-disgusting, unworthy, too inhuman, too ugly, too weak, too-_

_-felt so good under him, everything so smooth and hard, except his hair-_

_-just like Char, just wanting a willing body-_

_-magnet for beautiful assholes and too dumb to know it until it's too late-_

_-my fault, always my fault...why do I let this happen every time-_

The tumbling thoughts nearly overwhelm him even long after his mind retreats from them. He may have struck a nerve in the lieutenant, but that was the point. She's growing more attached to their liaisons, and by extension to him. And damn her, it's rubbing off on him. It's a weakness he cannot, _will not_ , allow. Better to hate and be hated. He knows how to handle that, he knows his place in the universe that way; he wields all the power then and is able to keep himself distant and aloof. It's difficult to remember how to do that when Daan is looking at him with those soft eyes big and deep enough for him to drown in. It's too hard to keep himself sharp and deadly when she touches him so lightly during his moments of distraction.

Ren shoves all thought aside in a brief fit of rage. By letting himself think of such lowly things he's allowed himself to go soft. It's...unbecoming.

He sinks into meditation in an effort to refocus himself in the Dark Side. He draws his ever-present anger and fury around him like a cloak, pulsing and hot like fresh blood spilling from an opened artery.

He tries not to think about how many times he has to snap his attention away from the heartbreaking thoughts and quiet sobs of the lieutenant across the base.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hasty update is hasty. Meh.

Staring at varying shades of black and grey inside the base and endless white outside for days on end was already enough to make Kida depressed. Not that she needed much help in that department after Ren's parting words to her several hours ago. She needed to get out for a while, needed to be reminded that the universe didn't consist solely of these drab walls and glaring holoscreens. Thankfully, Lennox's overnight shift was due to end in less than ten minutes. She'd messaged him and asked him to meet her at their spot. He hadn't replied, but she was confident he'd be there...she hoped.

The sky had only just begun to lighten when Kida heard the crunch of snow, growing louder with each second and approaching from her right. She didn't need to look to know that it was Len, her eyes fixed on the slowly brightening horizon. Her view was interrupted by a steaming thermos held in front of her face. “It's freezing out here,” Len mumbled as she gratefully took the thermos, sighing softly at the warmth seeping into her hands through her gloves.

“When is it not freezing on this base, Len?” She made sure to keep her tone light, even though she really didn't feel like making jokes.

Len hmph'd. “Point taken.” He sat down on the fallen tree beside her, cradling his own thermos almost lazily. Where Kida balanced herself on the frozen wood with her knees drawn up to her chin, her blessedly hot caf held between her legs and chest between sips, Len simply sat as he did anywhere else: legs wide, elbows on his knees, gaze held up.

Neither of them said anything or even moved very much for the longest time. Kida just tried to focus on the shifting colors of the sky as the dawn began to break. Sunrise seemed to be the only time Starkiller Base was allowed color, the giant star painting the sky with all shades of blue first before graduating to pale pinks, then oranges and dark yellows. Too soon it would be hidden behind grey clouds, but these few moments were made all the more precious to Kidara because of it.

Just as the first golden rays of light touched the forest below their viewing spot, Lennox couldn't take the silence anymore. He turned his head towards his friend, his expression concerned and sympathetic. “You okay?”

Any other time, Kida would have just nodded automatically whether she was okay or not. But she'd spent the whole night and dawn thinking about every relationship she'd ever had with anyone. The two lovers she'd once thought had loved her just as much in return, every friend from the Academy she'd lost touch with as they were shipped off to their separate posts, every person who'd ever offered her a kind word or a compliment before vanishing into the ether of existence. Many of those closer relationships she'd actively tried to maintain. But time, distance, and life itself had snatched too many friends from her. And, worst of all, she trusted too easily; it was that flaw that had led to a shattered heart more than once when that trust was abused. Had all of those people merely been playing her for a fool? She still wanted, _needed_ , to believe that there was someone somewhere she could share her heart, body, and soul with (and that she would actually find them in her lifetime). Lord Ren's words echoed in her mind, however. 

She finally turned to Lennox once she'd worked up her nerve to ask once again: “You like me, right?”

He blinked. Confusion shone in those soulful brown eyes before he realized exactly what she was asking, and why. “Of course, I do, Kida. Would I be freezing my ass off out here at the crack of dawn for someone I didn't like?”

She wasn't having any of his sass. “I mean it. You really are my friend, right? It's not just some kind of long-running joke you're waiting for the perfect moment to let me in on and laugh in my face?”

Len had heard this before, in times when Kida was particularly low and letting her overactive imagination to concoct all kinds of scenarios in which she always came out the loser. It didn't stop him from being quick to prove her wrong. “Absolutely not! You're a wonderful person, Kidara Daan. I'm honored just to be able to talk to you outside of work stuff.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tightly into his side. She was shivering, and not likely from the cold. “I know you've been hurt beyond measure before, but please believe me when I say you'll never get anything but love and honesty from me.”

Kida went stiff against him, then finally relaxed with a deep, stuttering sigh. “Thank you, Len,” she muttered into his chest. “I just needed to hear it right now.”

He didn't need to ask what had brought on this sudden doubt; he knew Ren was involved somehow, the bastard. But he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he simply said, “Anytime,” before pressing a reassuring kiss into his best friend's forehead. “I love you, Kida.”

A wave of calm and warmth swept over Kida's mind, sent to her from Len as much as he could manage. It was the kind of love that was unconditional, that demanded and required nothing. She could have basked in it all day if she had the option. “I love you, too, Len.”

They stayed that way until the sun cleared the horizon's edge, when Len tried and failed to stifle a yawn. “Go on inside,” Kida said, sounding and feeling much better once she'd been reminded that she wasn't alone in the universe. “You must have been up for at least fifteen hours now.”

“Sixteen and a half,” he corrected with a grin, “but who's keeping track. You okay?”

“Yeah, thanks to you. Go get some sleep. I'm gonna watch the sunrise a bit longer.” He left her with a firm squeeze of her hand, taking her empty thermos with him. By the time the sun was swallowed by the perpetually-present clouds, Kida's tiny smile had disappeared entirely. She'd made up her mind about her...situation: although it went against her very nature, she would steel herself against the rough touches that made her gasp in pleasure, the biting kisses that stole her breath, the subsequent euphoria that followed their joinings.

If she were meant to be nothing more than a means to an end, then that's what she would be. Lord Ren garnered some perverse pleasure from the reactions he coaxed from her, so she would give him none. She only hoped that her resolve wouldn't crumble at the first grip of his hand on her waist, or the touch of his lips and teeth to her throat...and that that very resolve wouldn't lead to the loss of her life.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for angry blowjobs!

Barely a full day had passed before that familiar pressure began to unfurl at the base of Kida's skull. A knot of excitement and terror formed in her stomach as she launched herself up from her station, startling the corporal decoding encrypted interstellar transmissions beside her. She followed the tenuous thread that linked her to the volatile knight, forcing herself to fall into the persona she'd created sitting in the cold the previous morning. The few people she recognized in the halls she ignored, feeling their questioning looks on her back, yet finding strength in them to continue onward. Right now, she wasn't the smiling, affable Kida they all knew. The closer she got to Ren, the more she became a Kidara Daan made of durasteel and ice (it didn't hurt that she drew on bits of Captain Phasma's personality and what precious few memories of her mother she had; the Dathomirian had been warm and loving to her family, but became a pillar of strength against those who threatened those she loved).

By the time she reached the bridge, Kida had fully sunk into the role, her nerves disappearing the more she let the new persona take over. She took only three steps inside the door, enough to earn a confused look from those nearest, but far enough away that the two men engaged in some mental and verbal battle of wills on the command deck couldn't notice her. She waited for the right time to announce herself, back ramrod straight, hands clasped behind her in the same manner as if awaiting inspection in formation. She couldn't hear what General Hux and Kylo Ren were, to put it loosely, 'discussing', but it became painfully clear that the general was the source of this bout of anger that had Kida's skull pounding.

Red flashed across her mind along with a spike of pain, like a needle sharply pressing into her brainstem, just as Ren stepped into the general's personal space. She'd had enough. “Lord Ren!”

All eyes turned to her as her voice rang out loud and clear. Reminding herself to think of this as an act (like the stage plays her father had taken her to after her mother had died) and herself as just another actor, she ignored the stares and the heavy silence to pinpoint all of her focus on the masked man several meters before her. She hardly recognized her own voice when she said, “A word, if you don't mind.” She forced down the thrill that shot through her at the confidence she felt with this new voice as she turned away; there'd be time to enjoy it later...if she survived the next few moments, of course.

Ren's filtered, distorted voice cut through the empty space between them like a vibroblade. “You dare order me-”

Kida spun on her heel to cut him off with a sharp, “I don't recall stuttering, my lord.”

A collective gasp spread through the room; even General Hux, in a rare moment of being caught off-guard, looked surprised. Any other time, any other situation, Kida would have buckled under the weight and fire of Ren's stare, even hidden behind the mask. But remembering the last words he'd spoken to her, the utter insignificance and worthlessness he'd made her feel...little room was left for fear when the righteous fury he himself had instilled in her that night now surged forth. An eternity seemed to pass before Ren finally stepped towards her. Sure that his long strides would easily catch up, Kida turned again and made her way to the nearest conference room she knew to be empty.

Soon enough, the click of her own heels on the polished hallway floor was drowned out by the heavy stomp of Ren's boots behind her. The back of her neck prickled, partly from fear, partly from exhilaration. A probing sensation prodded over her brain: Ren poking around. Strangely, there was no intent to harm or coerce. He was...searching. Curious about what she was up to. Intrigued. Kida imagined a durasteel trap springing around her mind, holding onto the image in the hopes of keeping Ren out.

The sharp yet quiet intake of breath she heard behind her confirmed it was working, for the moment.  _Force powers, my ass,_ she allowed herself to think smugly.

The moment the conference room door whirled shut behind Ren, he moved. One hand on her throat was all he needed to pin her to the wall, pressing in just enough to make breathing difficult. Kida felt her facade falter at the grip, the way his body dwarfed hers, the closeness of that expressionless mask to her own face. It took every ounce of self-control not to shudder when he spoke, frighteningly soft. “I will give you five seconds to explain yourself before I strangle the life out of you, girl.”

But Kida found strength in her new persona, the kind of person she'd always wished she could be yet was never in her nature. Until now, apparently. “My lord,” she started gently...before remembering the most relevant and important lessons Captain Phasma herself had taught her.

_Get too close. Minimize your opponent's options by invading their space._ Ren may have been taller, stronger, and infinitely more capable of tearing her to shreds than she had of even nicking him, but she had surprise and agility and a previously-unknown fierceness on her side.  _Strike where they can't defend, right where it hurts the most._ She threw all of her weight into the arm keeping her trapped, knocking it away from her in the same instant she turned to jab the sharp point of her elbow into his side just under the soft flesh of his armpit. The move shocked him, if the shout reverberating from the mask was any indication, but she wasn't done yet.  _Once you're in a position of power, maintain it with everything you are._

Using the precious few microseconds she had before his hand closed on his lightsaber and cut her down, Kida forcibly reversed their positions so that he was the one with his back to the wall, her hands pressed against his chest. Logically, she knew her pitiful strength was nothing compared to what he could do, but all that power was nothing if he couldn't focus on using it.  _Keep them off-balance any way you can._ For now, that involved dropping the slipshod mental barrier entirely and letting him sense her intention without giving him any explicit detail.

The silence that followed, broken only by Ren's slightly elevated breathing, Kida recognized as her moment of truth: either she would succeed and live to see another day, or Ren would snap her neck.

“My lord,” she began again, just as gently but with no less durasteel, “it is my duty to curb your anger to ensure the completion of this base...with minimal damage to it and its crew.” Her hands slipped up to his shoulders when he still did not move, then further up to the hidden catches of his helmet. She'd seen him remove it enough times to have a general idea of how to do it herself. The expression of stunned awe on Ren's face when she lifted the heavy metal surprised her; if anything, she'd expected barely-contained fury. Rather than deter her, the sight drove her on.

“Of course, I'm no psychologist, nor do I have the Force on my side. But-” Kida slid down to her knees, keeping her eyes locked on Ren's “-my previous methods seem to have tempered your rage before.” The tingle in her chest went forcibly ignored as her fingers set about undoing the clasp of Ren's pants.

He was hot and heavy in her hand when she pulled him from the confines of the dark fabric, already half hard and getting harder by the moment. The thought that perhaps a part of him enjoyed this new, aggressive side of her made Kida's breath involuntarily hitch. Bitterness soon invaded her own arousal when she spoke again, simultaneously stroking him to full hardness: “I may be nothing more than a body to you, Lord Ren, but even you can't deny the way your anger and passion are sated after taking me.” The tiny, barely-audible gasp the dark knight made when she gave a harsh squeeze sent a bolt of heat down her spine to make her sex throb almost painfully. But this wasn't about her, wasn't even about pleasure. This was about teaching Lord Ren a lesson: that she may be kind and easily wounded, but push her too far and she would remind him that she was no weakling. “I would be remiss in my duty if I allowed your temper to grow unchecked. Wouldn't you agree?”

If he even intended to answer, she gave him no time to do so. Her lips closed around the head of his cock and sucked. Hard. His hips jumped forward in instinctive response, but Kida shoved him back against the wall and held him there. Realistically, she knew that he allowed her to do it...but the thought of having him under her thrall was too delicious a fantasy to relinquish just yet. Emboldened, she pushed forward to take more of him into her mouth, relaxing her jaw and stroking her tongue along the pulsing vein on the underside of his cock as she did.

The few times she'd done this kind of thing, her partner had carefully lifted his hips in a plea for her to take him deeper. Ren, however, was not gentle, nor did she expect him to be: he writhed under her momentarily, then tangled his fingers in her hair when she began to pull back, trying to force himself further down her throat. Kida was in charge this time, however, and she made damn sure he knew when she pulled his hands away and slammed them to the durasteel at his back.

Although most would call hers the more submissive position, _Ren_ was in fact the one at _her_ mercy. He could easily retake dominance from her with the barest effort, yet he was too unfocused, too overwrought with shock at her new demeanor and overloaded with sensation that he did little more than give a few shallow thrusts of his hips as she set the pace, his fingers clenching into his palms as she held his wrists.

Kida wasn't entirely in control of her own emotions, however. She thrilled at the taste of him on her tongue, at how responsive he was, at the sounds he made when she moved her tongue just so. If not for the memory of their last parting, she might have allowed herself to fall into her arousal and do anything he ordered of her. As it was, remembering the way he had looked upon her naked body with disgust (a fact that she still didn't understand when he had never looked at her in such a way before) and called her a 'pleasure whore' only made her angry. The irony of their reversed situations (her taking out her anger on him rather than the reverse) wasn't lost on her.

The sudden jerk of Ren's body against her and the taste of precome on the back of her tongue snapped her thoughts back to the present. A glance up at his face (his head pressed back against the wall, eyes closed, full lips parted to allow harsh breaths to escape his mouth) nearly had her moaning around him, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she swirled her tongue around his engorged crown before sucking at him even harder. Seconds later she was swallowing every bit of his seed, careful not to spill a drop, while he exhaled a long, achingly erotic groan.

Kida pulled away after one last lick up his softening shaft, tucking him back into his pants and straightening his clothes before standing. She'd intended to simply leave him once she was done, but the way he looked at her through hooded eyes made her pause. How dare he look at her with such soft eyes, almost pleading. _Who's the pleasure whore now, Ren?_ She didn't dare say the words aloud, but she was positive he heard them nonetheless.

His lips were under hers before she knew what she was doing. She darted her tongue into his mouth to stroke against his, to flirt with his palate, to make sure he tasted himself on her. Once she pulled back, satisfied by his breathlessness (and the fact that she was still alive), she noticed how his fists shook slightly at his sides. Anger? Indignation? Hesitation? Whatever the reason, the sight made her smile wickedly: whatever he wanted to do, he was unable to do it.

Kida took two steps back, taking note of the way Ren's head tried to follow her but his body wouldn't comply, and stood at attention. “Lord Ren.” A curt nod of her head and she was walking out the door, combing and smoothing her hair back into place. Regardless of what happened next, nothing could take from her the pleasure of leaving the fearsome Kylo Ren panting and boneless after stunning him with her forwardness. He could come to his senses in the next thirty seconds and kill her without little more than a thought, but not even death would negate the fact that he had been bested by the woman whom he had misjudged for far too long.

The corporal she had startled earlier with her sudden departure glanced over at her when she resumed her place at her station. Kida ignored her. She was too busy reveling in the aftermath of having Kylo Ren speechless and breathless before her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeeah, so I screwed up a few times, mostly on the location. So for my purposes, I'll be going back and forth between the Finalizer and Starkiller Base. Because fuck it, I already wrote the shit I'm not going back to fix it.

Ren avoided her for days. Not to the point of Kida being able to call him on it, but she didn't miss how whenever they were in proximity he always kept his gaze away from her when she was looking...and how he fixed on her when he thought she wasn't. Outwardly, she ignored him. Inwardly, she loved having his attention focused on her, like he didn't quite know what to make of her anymore. She was definitely enjoying having him unsteady around her; about time he understood how that felt. Lennox had even commented on how much brighter she seemed, how she had this weird little smile on her face every time he saw her. She'd only enlightened him with, “I took my confidence back”.

She was still basking in that knowledge aboard the  _Finalizer_ , happily translating a collection of decades-old Pantoran poems into Huttese (she giggled to herself occasionally at the absurdity of such beautiful words ever being spoken in such a guttural, sluggish tongue), when her comm beeped next to her main console. “Yes,” she automatically answered, oblivious to the code flashing on the device's side.

“Lieutenant.”

Instinct and habit had her sitting straight up at her desk the second  _that voice_ cut through the relative silence of her room. Then she remembered that she was supposed to still be bitter and resentful...and she was, but she had calmed down since leaving him in that conference room. She wasn't about to let him off the hook so easily, however. “Lord Ren,” she greeted stonily. A beat. “Anything I can do for you, sir?” 

Was that a breath she heard on the other end? “Come to my quarters, if you please.”

A request. Disguised as a command. Interesting. She could play that game, too. “I'll be there shortly, sir.” Just polite enough to be civil, but certainly not conveying desperation or any desire to hurry. The notion of making him wait just to be cruel was entertaining, but ultimately Kida decided against it. But there was no harm in taking her time shutting down her equipment, saving and backing up her work to make sure nothing was lost.

The thought of putting her uniform back on after having spent several hours relaxing made her nose crinkle in distaste. She did have a thing for the aesthetic of military wear, but right now she much preferred the comfort of her sleepwear. She lingered on the thought of what others might say seeing an officer strolling the halls in such a state of undress...for about a second. Kida was too tired of putting other's thoughts before her own comfort, already tired of whatever it was Ren was planning to care much about what she was wearing. Besides, there was nothing obscene or indecent about a simple tank top (even if the shirt exposed the remnants of finger-shaped bruises earned not in physical training or combat) and soft, long pants. 

Just as she took her time saving her work in her quarters, Kida took her time getting to Lord Ren's rooms. Surprisingly, as the minutes ticked by, there was no pressure in her skull, no tingling in the back of her mind that signaled Ren's growing irritation. That alone made worry start to coil in her gut; whatever he was planning must have been terrible indeed if he was tolerating her delay.

Yet still she walked on. She refused to be cowed by the man any longer.

The door to Ren's quarters slid silently open before she'd even come to a complete stop to request entry. Shaking off the momentary surprise, Kida stepped inside.

Her breath stopped for a moment when she caught sight of Kylo Ren. Silhouetted against the starry sky without his helmet or cowl, Ren looked every inch the brooding, tragic prince of some passion play. Kida had always been a romantic at heart (a trait that had, ironically, led to heartbreak more than once), and the sight of the Knight with his bowed head facing-but-not-seeing the starscape in front of him reminded her of that.

Until she remembered she was still supposed to be angry at him.

Shaking off the sentimental reflection, Kida straightened up and clasped her hands behind her back. Ren did not address or acknowledge her for a long beat, so she took the initiative. “My lord,” she called flatly. The only indication that he'd even heard her was the slight turn of his head. Her own irritation began to grow, but she forced it down. “You requested my presence, sir.”

Ren said not a word as he turned towards her. Kida allowed him to look her over. She couldn't see his face clearly from this distance, but she had the very distinct impression that he was...confused. By what, she had no idea. “I am about to do something,” he said suddenly, almost too quiet to hear, “that I have never done, Lieutenant.” Four long strides brought him directly in front of her, her line of sight completely filled with the broadness of his chest and shoulders. Well, maybe he wasn't going to kill her after all; he'd certainly done that before. Her gaze stayed trained straight ahead, anxiety rising like bile with every silent moment that passed. Finally, Ren spoke: “I...apologize.”

That was more than enough to have Kida reeling back, her eyes reflexively lifting to meet his in search of any mockery or lie. “Pardon?”

She noticed his hands go behind his back in a mirror image of her own. “For my behavior towards you. What I said...it was uncalled for, and untrue. You had done nothing to deserve it.”

What could she say to that? Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren,  _apologizing_ to  _her_ ? If her muscles weren't frozen in shock, she would have pinched herself to make sure she was actually awake and this whole scene was real. Instead, she could only stare. 

“Therefore,” Ren continued, his discomfort growing until Kida could feel it as acutely as if he'd laid a hand on her, “I release you from your service to me. Go back to your languages and translations. You'll endure no more torture from me.”

He turned his back to her then, starting back to the viewpane looking out over the stars.

That was it? Everything she had given and done and tolerated in regards to this man was just going to be wiped away with an apology (surprising as it was) and a simple dismissal? Something flashed in her at the thought, something hot and sharp.

“No.” The word was out of her mouth before she could second-guess it.

Ren's movements stopped. “What did you say?”

_Ah, kark it._ No taking it back now. “I said 'no', my lord.”

She was sure Lord Ren thought himself rather frightening and intimidating as he slowly turned back to her, leveling an intense stare directly into her own eyes. But the roiling mix of puzzlement, instinctive anger, desire, and genuine curiosity that rolled off him like a wave dampened the effect. “Explain yourself.”

“With all respect, sir, I was assigned to you by General Hux himself.” She ignored the way his hands clenched at the mention of Hux, and pressed on. “My orders were to provide you with an alternate means to purge your outbursts of rage rather than destroying more of Starkiller Base faster than can be repaired, whether that means through sexual release, physical torture, or anything else you please. I intend to follow those orders to the letter, sir.” Risking two steps forward, Kida took a breath. “Use me in any way you like, my lord; I can take it. But I will _not_ be thrown away like a piece of garbage.” _Not again._

Ren blinked at her several times before cocking his head to one side. He was studying her, analyzing her. Kida felt herself nearly deflate after her speech; she had revealed far too much with those last words, and she was certain he could hear her every thought that was not given voice, such as how she truly did enjoy their rendezvous, even if they weren't exactly the kindest or most affectionate. The last of her anger at him had drained out of her system and had left her simply tired.

She remained stock-still when Ren approached again, this time stopping mere inches from her. She didn't dare look up at his face yet. “Such a perplexing creature you are,” he said softly. Kida watched him raise one hand and touch two fingertips to her bared arm. The urge to shiver was immediately squashed down as his touch moved lower, coaxing her arm forward until he cradled her wrist. His fingertips traced over the faded bruises he had put there weeks ago. “You say nothing of my treatment of you until I insult you, and yet you still wear my marks.”

“Perhaps I like them.” Kida could have kicked herself for saying that out loud. 

“Do you now.” And she could have kicked Ren for being so smug and pleased with himself. “You truly enjoy parading yourself around as mine?” An earnest shiver ripped through her body when his touch lighted on the bite mark on her shoulder; that one was always her favorite. 

The heat that had slowly begun to build in her gut at the first touch of his fingers to her skin flared into a blaze when he suddenly clasped his large hand on the back of her neck and pulled her forward into a harsh, possessive kiss that stole her breath. It only stopped when her back hit the wall, Ren's towering frame pressing into her. This wasn't what she'd been expecting, but she certainly wasn't going to complain. “Should I mark you up again, my little soldier?” he breathed into her neck. “Your uniform doesn't leave much room to show off my claims on you,” -a sharp nip to her thundering pulse wrenched a wanton gasp out of her chest, much to her chagrin- “but I can be rather  _creative._ ”

“Yes.” That was far more breathy and desperate than Kida would have liked. She made up for it by burying her hands in Ren's softer-than-expected hair and pulling hard until he met her eyes. “Yes, my lord.”

The shudder that went through him in that moment most likely would have gone unnoticed if she didn't have such a firm grip on him. It sent a bolt of lightning down her spine and straight to her clit. That one little move was an excellent ego boost, giving Kida that extra push to be just a little bolder. His earlobe disappeared between her lips, making him rumble his approval, but she wasn't done: her teeth sank into the soft flesh and tugged until his breathing went ragged. “Mark me again, Lord Ren.”

Apparently, that whispered demand was all it took to break the knight's control. He surged forward, pinning her to the wall from shoulder to hip, one hand gripping her waist hard enough to bruise. “I think I like this side of you, Lieutenant,” he growled into her neck, his hands slipping up under her thin shirt to palm her breasts. “I knew there was more to you than there appeared.”

_I'll take that as a compliment._ Kida allowed herself to be swept up in the euphoria Ren instilled in her; yes, he was still an asshole, but good gods he played her body like an instrument. She gasped at the sharp pleasure of his callused palms on her over-sensitive nipples, exposed her throat to his voracious mouth for those aggressive kisses and suckles that made her knees weak, rolled her hips into his at the press of his hard cock against her. The layers of cloth between them seemed only to stimulate her more, like their clothing was merely an illusion of modesty.

Kida had begun pulling at his clothes when a surge of images and sensations flowed into her mind. She cried out at the intrusion, but the initial headache quickly dissipated when she realized what Ren was sending her: flashes of his anger when she had addressed him so blatantly on the bridge, his piqued curiosity when she'd shut him out of her mind, the sheer awe that had left him motionless before her when she'd overpowered him in the conference room, culminating in the utter ecstasy of her lips closing around his shaft and bringing him to completion down her throat. What had her reeling, however, was the sense of... _adoration_ Ren had felt, even for the briefest moment, as he'd looked at her when she'd stood and glared at him in triumph. She hadn't really looked triumphant then...had she? She'd certainly felt it, but-

“I've replayed that moment in my mind so many times, my little soldier,” Ren breathed into her ear, breaking her free from the slew of mingling thoughts. “So few are able to challenge me and walk away with their lives.”

“Perhaps they simply don't know the right way to challenge you.” Although meant to be teasing, that last word died in a deep groan when Ren pinched and rolled one of her nipples through the thin barrier of her shirt. 

He pulled back, brushing his full, soft lips over hers. “And you do?”

“I'm still alive, aren't I?”

If his touches turned her knees into jelly, the low, sensual chuckle that vibrated through his chest against hers nearly made her entire body boneless. “For now.”

“Shall I give you a reason to keep me around a while longer, my lord?” The layers of cloth didn't stop her from raking her nails down his back. A mere taste of what she could offer if he let her.

Ren hummed and arched into her scratching fingers. “Who am I to say no to such a wonderful offer.”

Kida's shirt and pants and most of Ren's clothing littered the floor on the way to his bed. He allowed her to take the lead this time, laying back on his elbows as Kida straddled his still-clothed hips and rocked into his prominent erection. She took the opportunity he provided when he threw his head back with a deep sigh, nipping and licking up the pale column of his throat to the soft flesh beneath his ear. “Let me make you come,” she groaned, still moving her hips over his. “Let me give you pleasure.”

Fire surged through her veins when he growled; stars, she loved when he did that. “You're doing a good job so far,” he ground out after a harsh breath.

Laughter bubbled up from her throat at just how far gone he was already. One hand slipped down the carved marble of his chest and abdomen, under the waist of his pants, finally wrapping determined fingers around his wonderfully hard cock. She marveled at the feel of him in her palm, the heat of the swollen head against the pad of her thumb. But it was the way his dark eyes sparkled when they met hers that truly made her feel wanted, made her feel powerful. “My lord, I'm only just getting started.”


	10. Chapter 10

Trying to get any kind of work done was proving more difficult than Kida had anticipated. Ren had been called away by one of his Knights not long after she'd fallen asleep against him in his bed, exhausted and satiated. She'd woken long enough to watch him pull on his pants,  grinning to herself at the long lines of red down his back where her nails had scratched into his fair skin, and  purring sleepily when his fingertips ran down her arm over the new bruises he'd sucked and pressed into her flesh. 

Not only was his absence from the  _Finalizer_ sharply felt (oddly enough), but her fellow linguistics techs kept glancing at her when they thought she couldn't see; never before had she felt as cursed by her expanded peripheral vision than she did now. They were trying to not be obvious about their glares at the darkening spot high on her neck, and along with the whispered gossip going around about why she was allowed to leave her post 'whenever she pleased' and not report on time without reprimand, it wasn't difficult to ascertain their thoughts.  


Kida was trying so hard to focus on her work, translating the chatter from Weequay pirate ships that had entered the sector, that she didn't notice the presence beside her until she heard her rank being barked at her through her earpieces. She started, hitting her knee on the underside of the console, then saw the stripes on the sleeve to her right.

She was sure she was less than graceful when she hastily stood and yanked the devices out from her ears, feeling more like a teenager caught listening to inappropriate music than an officer of the First Order. “General Hux, sir,” she greeted with a salute, staring straight ahead in an attempt to calm herself and not let her nerves take over; the General wasn't the most imposing person she'd ever met, but he certainly was one of the most intimidating.

“Busy?”

Kida wasn't sure at first how to answer. He said it so flatly, but one never knew if Hux intended to reprimand, praise (unlikely), or merely test. Fingers still pointed at her temple, she answered honestly: “I was monitoring transmissions from the Weequay ships our scouts spotted in the sector, sir. In case of any mention of the Resistance or hostility towards us.”

“And?”

“Nothing of import to the Order, sir.” _Mostly bragging about cons and hauls and more obscene things better suited to a pornography studio._ The General neither need to hear that, nor did he care about it, so she kept it herself. 

Cold eyes looked at her for a moment longer, probably just to unnerve her, before he nodded once. “At ease, Lieutenant.” Kida made sure to keep the fact that her arm had started to fall asleep in its prolonged salute hidden. “How is your Cheunh?”

She blinked once, slightly taken aback by the abruptness of the question. “A little rusty, but good, sir. All six dialects.”

The General didn't look impressed, not that she had expected him to; she'd said it not to boast, but simply to inform him of her range in case he required an interpreter familiar with the language as a whole, not just what was more commonly spoken in the galaxy. “You will accompany Captain Strupe and his team to negotiate the terms of the Chiss Ascendancy's surrender. You will depart tomorrow at 0600.”

“Yes, sir.” She hesitated, glancing to the side in a lifelong habit as she struggled to phrase her next question. “Sir, what about...”

“Yes, Lieutenant?” Kida was immensely glad in that moment that the General couldn't read her mind and see the annoyance that had surfaced at his easy provocation; he knew exactly what she was referring to, but he wanted her to say it out loud, curse him.

"I was recently reassigned as liaison to Lord Ren.” She stomped down the tingle that had started to form in the center of her chest, unsure and uncaring if it was a pleasant one or not. “I will not be able to fulfill my duty if I am to be offbase.” It was as plain and boring as she could put it without embarrassing herself by describing just what that 'duty' entailed; the techs around her, who were all surely listening to the exchange, didn't need another reason to give her dirty looks later.

The irritation General Hux felt towards Kylo Ren must have been great indeed to wash over Kida like a wave; her Zeltron heritage, although diluted by her mother's Dathomirian blood, allowed her to feel emotions from others, but only when they flared drastically. She nearly staggered back a step at the onslaught, but it quickly disappeared as if wrangled into submission by her commanding officer. Indeed, the only outward indication that he'd felt anything at all was the hardening of his mouth and the slight inward turn of his eyebrows. “I will deal with Lord Ren, Lieutenant.”

_Oh no_ , she thought to herself.  _How many weeks will we be set back this time?_ There was no doubt in her mind that he could handle Ren...but at what cost to Starkiller (and anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the blast radius) when the unstoppable force of Kylo Ren collided with the immovable object of General Hux? Rather than voice any of those thoughts, she simply responded, “yes, sir”. 

Kida sat back down at her station once the General took his leave, pointedly ignoring the questioning looks of the others, and settled back into listening to the Weequay chatter. It was still far too early to retire for the night, and with Lord Ren called away, she might as well do something somewhat productive.

But while the repetitive (and occasionally disgusting) chatter began droning into little more than white noise in her ears, she became gripped with apprehension: what would happen if Lord Ren were not informed of her departure from the _Finalizer_ and returned to find her gone? Would he be indifferent, or not? He'd already essentially proclaimed her to be his property (a thought that made her simultaneously burn with desire and freeze with horror), and the Knight was nothing if not possessive of his 'things'. She shuddered to think if he would devise some kind of punishment for her not being at his beck and call, and if it would be less about carnal pleasure for either of them than putting her in her place. The fact that General Hux himself had ordered her on the trip would be immaterial at best, or infuriate him all the more at worst.

Well, there went her plan to keep an ear on the pirate ships.  _Might as well brush up on my Cheunh instead._ The rest of the evening she spent refreshing her study of the language, losing herself in the beauty of the alien tongue and letting the work distract her from anything to do with the absent Knight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just making shit up about the Chiss language, but the Chiss Ascendancy does exist in the EU. So...there's that? *shrug*


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously cannot thank you guys enough who have commented and left kudos and generally even read this fic! It started as a way for me to vent; I never thought others would actually enjoy it :D I hope I can keep making you guys happy (or drowning in feels, either one) <3

“General!” The alarm in Lieutenant Mitaka's voice made Hux's head snap to the other man as he worked the controls of his console. “Distress signal from Captain Strupe's transport ship. They've been boarded by pirates.” Mitaka's eyes went wide as he continued listening to the distress message through his headpiece and relaying the information to his superior. “Several trooper casualties, several crew also dead.”

“What of Strupe?” Hux demanded coolly. Mitaka didn't need any more fuel added to his panic if any amount of alarm showed in Hux's voice or posture...not that it would have regardless.

“Unknown, sir-wait.” His head titled to one side as if doing so would make the transmission come through more clearly. The fear in Mitaka's face suddenly gave way to a cold anger that seemed out of place on him. “Who is this? Identify yourself immediately.”

“On speaker, Lieutenant.” Mitaka flipped a switch at once, and the stilted, gritty voice of a stranger filled the bridge.

“Greetings to you, military slime. Seems you've lost something, eh?”

Hux stepped towards the console Mitaka currently sat at and fixed the metal and flashing lights with a glare that could have set it on fire. “This is General Hux of the First Order. Who are you?”

The unmistakable sounds of blasterfire and screams-cut-short served as background noise when the voice spoke again. “I'm just a simple businessman fulfilling a contract, oh, great General.”

Hux chose to ignore the mockery in that grating voice, maintaining his temper with the eyes of his subordinates all trained on him. “And what contract would that be?”

“To keep any and all First Order filth as far away from these parts as possible, of course.” 

A second voice, higher-pitched and infinitely angrier than the one taunting Hux, suddenly cut through the background, interspersed with the sound of a standard-issue blaster pistol. He'd never heard that voice in such throes of fury, and despite not understanding whatever language it was spewing, there was no doubt in his mind that it belonged to Lieutenant Kidara Daan. And from the sound of it, she was giving the intruders absolute hell. Hux found himself almost grinning at the thought of the soft-spoken woman launching into this litany of curses while picking off pirates one by one. The growl of the first voice (ostensibly male, though the species could not be determined by audio alone) became quieter for a moment, apparently turning away from the comm to shout at his people. “Get that  _schutta_ under control!”

Daan's curses, along with her blasterfire, stopped with a sharp cry and faint, harsh breathing. “And here I thought,” the pirate directed at Hux, “that we'd get more of a fight from your worthless Captain, General. As it is, he surrendered rather quickly without even firing a shot. Thought you First Order types would have been more stubborn.”

A prickle of rage stabbed Hux's chest. So, Captain Strupe gave himself, and therefore his crew, up that easily, eh? He'd have to verify that, of course, but one part of his mind was already preparing what he would say to Strupe when he demoted and/or executed him. The rage subsided for a moment when he heard Daan's defiant voice through the amplifiers again, unconsciously switching between Basic, Cheunh, and a flurry of other languages as she spat insults at the intruder. “Although, this one more than makes up for his spinelessness.”

There was no denying the smile in those words. A shiver at the vileness and the threat nearly went up Hux's back; he knew very well what befell some female captives, especially when their captors had no sense of honor or code beyond their own benefit. “So, you gonna stay clear of Chiss space, General? Or you gonna waste more men and resources by being stubborn?”

Hux was well aware of the eyes of his crew now focused intently on him. He could feel the questions burning in each of their minds as well as if they'd voiced them aloud.

Would he mount a rescue mission for as few as one low-ranking officer (Strupe's fate was still up in the air, but Daan might well be kept alive for...whatever purposes the pirates could think up)? What guarantee was there that even if a rescue attempt was made that a) there would be any survivors at all, or b) they wouldn't be flying into some larger trap?

The answer was almost insultingly simple: “Rest assured, pirate,” he spat towards the console, focusing on the being at the other end of the line with a hatred he was sure even Supreme Leader Snoke would be proud of, “should our paths ever cross, you will learn the true might of not only myself, but the First Order as a whole. I suggest you never let that come to pass.”

The laugh that filled the bridge then grated against Hux's very bones. “As you like,  _General_ . Whatever you have to tell yourself.”

Lieutenant Daan's voice in the background, beginning another tirade of defiance, abruptly cut off as the connection went dead.

A beat of pregnant silence swelled among the crew assembled, all eyes trained on Hux for their orders. The General turned sharply away from Mitaka's console and stalked towards the navigators. “Calculate the last known trajectory of Strupe's shuttle,” he ordered calmly, if harshly. “Take us to Chiss space.”

The energy and tension in the room snapped into a flurry of affirmations and activity.

Hux addressed the crew at large as he watched the pinpoints of stars become long streaks of light as the  _Finalizer_ jumped into hyperspace. “Ladies and gentlemen, whether directly or through the actions of hired arms, the Chiss Ascendancy has committed an act of war against the First Order. We go now to put an end to their machinations and show them that a mere taste of our power is more than enough to bring them to heel. To your battlestations!”

As everyone scrambled to prepare for the upcoming conflict, Hux retrieved his commlink from his pocket. “Captain Phasma.”

“Sir,” came the immediate reply.

“Assemble a small task force of your stormtroopers. You will dispose of the pirate filth that has hijacked Captain Strupe's shuttle and rescue any surviving crew.”

“Understood, sir.”

Hux allowed himself a nasty smile at the thought of what would befall those pirates unlucky enough to survive Phasma if Kylo Ren discovered they held his consort hostage. Of course, that was predicated by the slim chance that they managed to evade Captain Phasma.

He entertained the thought for only a moment before sinking himself into the preparations for battle.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking hell, this chapter fought me from start to finish -_- The next is fighting me, too, but not as badly. Annnnyhoo...GIRL CRUSH COMEBACK! (I'm also just making crap up at this point. My strength is interpersonal relationships and whatnot, not PLOT and ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS OUTSIDE OF THE MAIN RELATIONSHIP WUT. Eh.)

Ren knew he should have been focusing on providing distraction for his Knight as she disabled the shields around the ancient palace. The swirling Dark Side energy that gave a twisted kind of life to the corpses of long-dead warriors charging at him should have exhilarated him, should have been his to twist and warp for his own means. And while he was indeed giving the Monk the time she needed to slip inside to claim the relic she sought, part of his mind was far away back on the _Finalizer_. 

How the half-Zeltron woman had worked her way under his skin so easily was a mystery. People like her (so vulnerable, so compassionate, so... _her_ ) usually occupied so little of his attention it was almost insignificant. They were obstacles, victims, or temporary allies. Nothing more. And yet, here she was, infiltrating his thoughts from lightyears away. Memories of her burning flesh under his hands, of the way she had alternately growled and whimpered, pleaded and demanded during their last tryst, of the way she could be both aggressive and submissive all playing themselves out in his mind. His back still twinged whenever his clothes would rub over the scratches she had carved into his flesh in her heightened passion, which would send his traitorous body into the early stages of arousal. She had marked her claim on him just as he continuously marked his on her. Her duty may be to the First Order, but  _she_ was his. His little soldier.

Ren was shocked back into the present when the undead defenders of the palace all dropped to the ground, going still and silent as the graves they had climbed out from at the approach of intruders. An invisible brush across his shoulders brought his attention to the palace door. The Monk walked calmly towards him, her lightsaber back on her belt and her hands cradling some contraption that glowed faintly from within. “A Sith holocron,” she said with no shortage of awe, holding the small pyramid up so Ren could see it better...although he wondered if she was even aware of his presence when her voice took on a faraway lilt. “So much knowledge and power contained in so small a thing.”

Although he could certainly understand the Monk's fascination and desire for anything related to the old Sith (his grandfather's skull and helmet on their pedestal aboard the  _Finalizer_ spoke to that), Ren had very little patience for theory. He much preferred practical demonstration and application, modifying and honing his skills to suit his own needs rather than going 'by-the-book', as Skywalker would have said.

He shook the thought of his Jedi Master away with a soft snarl, deactivating his lightsaber at the same time. “You have your prize, T'chell. I trust you will share this find with the other Knights.”

Her unseeing mask lifted until he felt her hidden eyes meeting his, her head tilting sightly to one side. “Of course, Master Ren. Of course.”

T'chell had never been good at completely hiding her intent; her voice gave her away every time. There was far too much innocence, too much easy compliance in those words. A reprimand and a threat was on his lips when he felt it, that shift in the Force, like a subtle pressure on the back of his neck had moved just one degree off-center.

Something was wrong.

“Kidara...” The name was out of his mouth in a hushed whisper before he could register it as a thought. Anger, fear, adrenaline, defiance, determination. A tumult of emotions that he clearly recognized as his consort's, but felt as if from behind a wall of thick ice. His property was in danger.

Heedless of T'chell's unseen questioning stare, Ren screamed out his own rage as he bolted for his shuttle. To his credit, the pilot had the massive  _Upsilon_ -class ship fired up and just lifting off the ground by the time Ren set foot on the ramp. “Back to the  _Finalizer_ !” he barked. 

“Aye, sir,” the pilot responded.

Despite the speed of the ship, everything felt too slow. They weren't moving fast enough, even when the stretching of the stars outside the main viewport proved otherwise. Even at top speed, Ren's impatience and fury were not quelled. What made it all the worse, however, was how  _useless_ he felt. He could do nothing from here. He couldn't even reach out to Kidara with the Force like he could one of his Knights. There was only one thing he could do: he paced.

The foreign sensations that swelled and roiled inside his head grew sharper and more chaotic the closer he got back to the Destroyer. He ignored the way his hands shook in impotent rage and possessive concern, the sweat that had formed on his back under his robes, the harsh sound of his heavy breath against the inside of his mask. Trying to use the flight time to separate his own emotions from those bombarding him proved futile, especially when they vanished without warning.

The sudden loss felt as if a part of himself had been ripped away. A hand on the wall kept his stumble from sending him to the floor, but did nothing to calm his breathing or the panic rising in his throat like bile.  _Kidara!_ he called out into the Force with every ounce of power he had. 

Nothing. Only silence.

Anger, pure and white-hot, soon replaced everything else. The lieutenant had no touch of the Force, only her Zeltron empathy. There was no way she alone could cut herself off so entirely from him (and no reason she  _would_ , if her errant thoughts the last time they'd coupled were anything to go by). Which left only one explanation: someone dared harm his property.

“Pilot.” The sound of Ren's voice only barely covered the sound of durasteel bending under his fingertips. “If you value your life, you will fly this ship faster.”

* * *

Phasma found her first. Locked down on an upright table not unlike the one Kylo Ren held his prisoners in, Lieutenant Daan was as still as death but for the shallow rise and fall of her chest and the barest movements of her lips. Her troopers were moving methodically through the vessel, efficiently taking out one hostile after another; the growing quiet slowly drowning out the screams and curses of the Weequay pirates while Phasma had searched for the missing officer.

The sight that had greeted her as she'd rounded a corner nearly cracked her hardened shell with a sliver of rage towards everyone who had allowed the lieutenant to come to this. She was a promising student, a competent officer, and a genuinely decent person. And now her conspicuously-absent supervising officer, Captain Strupe, had allowed her to be captured and reduced to a mumbling mess. The sounds she made were barely audible, but Phasma recognized their cadence instantly. “Lieutenant Kidara Daan, XL-9314, First Order. Lieutenant Kidara Daan, XL-9314, First Order. Lieutenant Kidara Daan...”

It was the repetitive utterance taught at the Academy to resist torture.

Keeping one ear out for her troopers in case this extraction suddenly went south, Phasma turned the other half of her focus on getting Kidara off this bloody rustbucket and back on the  _Finalizer_ . The lieutenant's mutterings continued as if on loop; she didn't even seem to be aware of Phasma's presence. At least, she wasn't until the captain found the release switch and nearly tumbled to the floor. Phasma caught her quickly, her fury growing at how boneless and limp the other woman was. 

A cursory glance suggested that she had remained mostly unharmed physically, but her mind was shattered. The tools and canisters on a nearby table hinted at something she had only heard about, yet not seen personally until now: poisons and drugs meant to break the minds and spirits of their victims while leaving their bodies in tact. Blood was a pain in the ass to get out of clothing, and would eat through any untreated metal if not cleaned up quickly enough. Torture had gotten neater, so it seemed.

“Captain!” 

The sharp, sudden hail through her helmet snapped her back to the present. “GT-5498,” she acknowledged.

“Sir, the pirates are on the run. Thermal detonators have been detected throughout the ship. A failsafe in case of boarding, perhaps.”

Phasma was careful in turning Kidara so that she could carry her in more dignified and painless manner than simply throwing the smaller woman over her shoulder. “Have they been activated yet?”

“No, sir.”

“And the pirates have fled the ship?”

“Aye, sir. Escape pods have been launched, most with lifeforms aboard. Should we pursue?”

Instinct screamed at the captain to go after the scum. Justice and revenge were one-in-the-same for her in this case: what was meant to be a peaceful surrender of the Chiss Ascendancy had led to the deaths of several good troopers, the possible treason of one First Order officer, and the subsequent torture of another. Such atrocities could not go unpunished. However...

Phasma straightened her spine as she replied to her subordinate: “Negative. Leave them to run like scabrats. We return to the  _Finalizer._ ”

“Yes, Captain.”

Before the connection was cut, Phasma called back to the trooper. “Set a detonator of our own, GT-5498. Blow this scrap heap to oblivion once we're at minimum safe distance.”

“Yes, Captain.” The way those two simple words were said, Phasma could easily envision the feral grin that surely painted the trooper's face under his helmet. He had a penchant for making things go _boom_ , and Phasma was pleased to have his eagerness on the Order's side.

The captain had been so focused on navigating the ship with her fragile cargo in her arms that it wasn't until she was back in the boarding shuttle awaiting the return of her soldiers that she noticed how quiet and still Kidara had gone. She titled her head down to find the lieutenant's wide-eyed gaze fixed on her. There was no fear, however. Only a groggy type of awe and...relief. A phrase Phasma didn't understand tumbled from dry lips. Unsure of what else to say, she settled for a simple, quiet: “You're safe.” Troopers soon filled the shuttle, GT-5498 bringing up the rear, and they began the short trip back home to the  _Finalizer_ . 

_That shine. So bright. So beautiful. Familiar. The only familiar thing in this asphyxiating environment. Cold, yet warm. Hard, yet comforting._

Phasma. Captain. Phasma.  _Kida was safe now. Phasma wouldn't let anything hurt her. Phasma would protect her. Phasma would save her._

_A string of whispers fell unknowingly from uncooperative lips. ”My hero. My hero.” Her hand wouldn't move. She wanted to clutch at the armorweave cape, convince herself her rescuer wasn't another hallucination. The press of hard, smooth armor against her cheek was good enough. She was safe. She could stop now. She could let go now._

_Blessed darkness. Thank the stars, she could finally sleep again._

 


	13. Chapter 13

Ren was out of his shuttle and stalking towards the hangar doors before the ship even touched down. He wanted answers and he wanted them  _now_ . Where was Kidara? What had the pirate scum done to her? Was Hux doing  _anything_ to punish them for their transgression? Was his officer and Ren's consort harmed?  _WHERE WAS HIS LIEUTENANT?!_

Luckily for everyone onboard, Captain Phasma intercepted him before he even made it to the door. She said nothing, her emotionless helmet betraying nothing of the cold rage he could feel pouring from her in the Force. Ren greatly respected the Captain, but at the moment he was more than ready to rip off a limb or two if she tried to stop him in his mission. Instead, she simply handed him a small datapad, a single red dot silently blinking on the screen amidst a map of travel and hyperspace routes in the sector. He stared at it for a blind moment before realization dawned on him: a tracking device had been planted on the pirates that had held Kidara captive.

“GT-5498 placed a tracker on one of the pirates' escape pods before it launched. They escaped their ship before detonation and met up with another, most likely of the same guild or faction. I would have chased them to Hell and back myself if my priority hadn't been Lieutenant Daan's welfare,” Phasma told him quietly, her own fury at the situation fiercely suppressed. “She is safe now, sir. I will watch over her in the medbay until you return.”

Although his rage still burned white-hot, Ren felt a type of calm settle over him at the Captain's words. Now he had a pinpointed goal, a singular focus to direct his rampant thoughts. The soft leather of his glove creaked almost inaudibly when his hand tightened on the datapad to just within breaking the device. “Thank you, Captain.” Three simple words, ones he had said to Phasma several times in the past. But she knew him well enough to hear the genuine gratitude beneath the low gravel of his voice through his mask.

Later he would marvel at how fiercely protective of Kidara Daan both he and apparently Phasma had become; the woman had a talent for being likeable despite all logic for incompatibility for people such as the Knight and the Captain. Even Hux must have had a softer spot reserved for her if he had ordered Phasma to retrieve her (in a roundabout way, of course). He would wonder how someone so damn  _likeable_ could have had such terrible luck with people in the past when he was ready to tear the galaxy apart for her now. 

Later.

Right now, he had to hunt.

* * *

Nearly two standard weeks had passed before Ren's shuttle touched down on the  _Finalizer_ again, once more in the familiar orbit of Starkiller Base. He'd tracked the ones responsible for Kidara's imprisonment and torture, a feat that had taken longer than he'd anticipated or liked, and dealt out his justice swiftly and without mercy. For good measure, he'd blown up their ship once he was done with the living beings onboard. 

Now his focus was pinpointed solely on getting to Kidara.

The grey hallways of the ship abruptly gave way to a blinding white that made Ren cry out in pain. Panic surged through him until his heart hammered painfully against his ribs and his breath came in short, panting gasps. It took him far too long to recognize the feelings as not his own; they were coming from Kidara.

He practically flew through the corridors once his vision cleared, his cloak billowing out behind him like the wings of some great raptor. The chief medic scrambled from the medbay doors as Ren turned the corner, a look of shock written on his pale face. Ren paid him no heed, hurtling into the room with his lightsaber drawn but not ignited (yet).

The place was a mess. It looked like his own handiwork when he would take out his fury on the durasteel and wiring of the ship when he could not cut through living flesh. Even a medical droid lay toppled over on the floor, its head and limbs twitching and sparking. His consort's name was on the tip of his tongue when he finally spotted her. It was difficult to make out much of her form, but there was the unmistakable rosy skin of her arm...wrapped tightly around the shining chromium armor of Captain Phasma.

The stormtrooper was whispering to the lieutenant, things that Ren could not hear, though he was sure he wasn't meant to. Phasma seemed to be comforting Kidara, though from what, Ren could not discern. Clipping his weapon back to his belt, he approached the two women. Keeping his desperation under as tight a lock as possible proved to be a greater challenge than he thought when he saw just how tight Kidara's grip on Phasma was, and how the Captain was carefully trying to extricate some sharp surgical tool from the smaller woman's trembling fingers.

Phasma had just started to turn her head towards him when Kidara went deathly still for a moment, then launched herself at him to cling to his leg. Ren could do nothing but stand there in shock. His initial instinct was to kick her away, to put as much space between them as possible. But that was soon overtaken by the desire to fall to his knees and keep her in his embrace forever. Torn between two extremes, he did nothing.

“The medics say the physical damage was minimal,” Phasma said as she rose to her feet. “I suppose we can be thankful for that. But the real trauma was done to her mind. The pirates used some kind of mind-altering spice in an attempt to make her divulge information on the Order's movements.” She paused, possibly gauging Ren's mood before continuing. “Instead, they overdosed her. Her mind has been ripping itself apart ever since.”

Looking down at the woman gripping his leg like a vise, her cheek pressed against his knee as if he were going to vanish, Ren immediately felt that his vengeance upon the pirates had been too lenient. He'd killed them too quickly. He should have brought them back to the Destroyer with him and forced them to undo their work, then slowly stopped each of their internal organs, one at a time, until they finally expired.

Bright, wide, frightful eyes looked up at him as his anger began to overflow. “Didn't talk. I didn't talk.” He instantly hated her voice like that, so filled with terror, with fear directed at  _him_ . Kidara repeated those two words (“Didn't talk, didn't talk...”) over and over, pressing her forehead into his thigh as if in apology for something she didn't even do. 

Phasma's voice cut over hers just long enough to explain, “That's all she's said since I brought her home. She's been in and out of consciousness, but never coherent enough to do this” -an armored hand gestured at the chaos around the three of them- “until now. She only calmed down once I stepped in.”

Ren attempted to force his emotions back into their cage. He didn't dare think about what might have happened had Phasma not been present when Kidara had exploded, if he had been just a few seconds too late... “Thank you, Captain.” Once again, he sincerely meant those words, now more than ever.

Gentility had never been something Ren kept in his repertoire, but gazing down at the tangle of dark silver hair against his leg, he realized that there was a first time for everything. One gloved hand descended on Kidara's head, making her go motionless and tense at the contact. Ren stroked her hair as one would a frightened animal, noting how her shoulders slowly relaxed until she was leaning heavily into his touch. His next words were meant for Phasma, though his eyes did not move from his consort. “I will have our lieutenant back in working order as soon as possible.”

He distantly heard Phasma order the few staff in the medbay well away from the Knight and the officer. In the relative privacy, Ren allowed himself to fall to one knee before the lieutenant. Her eyes darted rapidly around his face, only meeting his gaze for a few milliseconds before flitting away. Even without reaching into what was left of her mind, the lingering fear was still painfully obvious in her every movement, every breath. “Kidara.” That one whispered word snapped her attention to him in an instant. She stared at him, unblinking, as if anticipating a blow yet craving a caress. Ren took advantage of her sudden focus and carefully took her face in his hands. She was trembling, but didn't flinch or try to back away from him. Good, very good. “I'm going to help you now. You need to remain calm. Can you do that? For me?”

Rather than answer with words, Kidara raised a shaking hand to graze his lips with two fingers. The touch was painfully intimate, so unbearably innocent in that moment; any other time, any other place, Ren might have encouraged her touch to grow bolder until she brought forth sounds of pleasure from him. But now was not the time. Now, he had a job to do.

“Didn't talk,” she breathed. “Didn't talk. Didn't talk...”

“I know.” Ren gently took her slim wrist in his hand, pressing a kiss to her fingertips before pulling them away. “You did very well, Lieutenant. Now, _relax_.” There was the barest hint of Force-induced persuasion in that last word, just enough for her mind to become still enough for him to navigate.

He distantly heard himself draw in a sharp breath once he settled himself inside her thoughts. Like shards of broken glass, disjointed and erratic, they flew past him on a destination to nowhere. Healing wasn't something he'd given any thought in the slightest to since before he renounced his birth name, let alone healing of the mind. The effort was taxing, requiring every bit of energy and focus he had to not cause more damage. Sweat broke out over Ren's flesh at the exertion, his breaths coming harder and shallower through his nose. He was unaware of his own physical discomfort; he was too deeply entwined within Kidara's psyche to be aware of anything else.

Slowly, painstakingly, tiny scraps of memory and rooted thoughts began to take shape. The rebuilding of her mental highways and connectors gave him the push to keep going, excitement at his progress subconsciously bubbling under the surface. He could feel the end of his task, so close, just a little more-

A flash of white and a splitting headache forced Ren out of Kidara's mind with a shout. A sudden weight against his chest helped him focus on the physical, on putting his own mind back in order and easing the pain above and behind his eyes. The lieutenant had fallen against him, unconscious but breathing steadily. A sense of relief flooded over him, an external-internal sensation that was leaving him almost languid in its wake.

A gloved hand came up to Kidara's forehead to brush wayward hair away. Ren could only stare at the peaceful expression on her face; with no hint of discomfort or pain, he could only assume his work had been successful, and that her mind would complete the healing process on its own.

The lieutenant felt like nothing in his arms when he finally managed to stand. The same medic he'd seen on his way in cautiously approached him now. “Sir? Are you alright?” A half-hearted glare was all the answer Ren gave him. “Sir, we should check her over. Make sure she's stable-”

“She is.” He could feel it, in the Force and in his very bones. 

The medic avoided Ren's eyes even as he pressed on. “Lieutenant Daan...she was given very powerful narcotics, sir. Even if her mind is healed” -Ren chose to let the medic's skepticism slide as he carefully made his way to the nearest bed- “her system will need to be flushed of the drugs. A simple IV should do it but-”

“Then do it quickly and leave us.”

“Erm...'us', sir?”

Ren answered by simply climbing onto the thin bed (much too short, of course, for his long frame, forcing him to recline more than lie back), Kidara gently yet firmly nestled between his legs, her back to his chest. His position and his grip on the woman conveyed the message better than words ever could: he wasn't going anywhere.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am slow at everything I do; sewing, writing, reading, etc. Blaaaaaagh.

Ren found himself growing increasingly possessive over Kidara the longer she remained out of consciousness. Any time a medic came too close when they needed to refresh her IV or when they reached out to check her vitals with their scanners he would grip her just a little bit tighter and growl at the intruder until they backed off; even Phasma's presence and that of Kidara's friend, some lieutenant or other, had provoked his hindbrain into a defensive mode he struggled to switch off. Once they were out of sight, he would allow his features to relax as he returned his focus to the woman in his arms.

He could feel her breath, her heartbeat, her healing psyche through the Force, and it soothed him in a way he couldn't explain. His rage at those who had put her in such a state still boiled beneath the surface, but it was secondary to the sense of relaxation that washed over him.  _Odd._ He didn't dare question it, though. Kidara was calm and healing, secure in his embrace, snuggling back into him occasionally as she unconsciously made herself more comfortable.

It was a very strange feeling to have someone so close and not drown in their fear or their hatred of him. Strange, but welcome.

Ren had removed his gloves long ago to run his fingers through the lieutenant's hair, savoring the silken glide of the strands against his bare skin. He'd nuzzle his cheek against her hair (the strands would often become stuck in the stubble that was currently growing on his face), brush the tip of his nose up the curve of her neck, rub one hand up and down her arm in a subconscious effort to remind himself that she was actually here with him. Any time he felt his anger threaten to well up (at the pirates, at the medics who ventured too near, at the presumably-dead Strupe for abandoning her to this fate, at himself for allowing her to be placed in such danger in the first place), he would breathe deeply against her shoulder and let her scent settle deep in his chest. He idly noted that the  large  bite mark he had left on her skin had vanished, most likely thanks to the  _Finalizer's_ own medical staff who didn't know the significance of the bruise. He'd have to replace it when she was back at full health.

Three days he stayed with Kidara, briefly thinking on the snippets of memories he had seen, but mostly willing her to wake so he could see those over-large eyes look upon him with steely determination and burning lust again. So he could apologize properly for killing her captors too quickly. So he could have his good little soldier back at his side.

It was towards the start of the night cycle on that third day that the lieutenant stirred in earnest. A tingle formed in his chest at the anticipation of seeing those eyes again, but she closed them as quickly as they had started to open.  _Too bright,_ Ren heard her think. A stab of pain accompanied the unconscious thought, slicing across Ren's forehead along the tops of his eyes from temple to temple. Being in someone else's head for so long always left him feeling the residual effects of whatever sensations the other was going through. When he lifted a hand to her temple, he told himself that ridding her of her headache was to rid himself of the sharp pain. The fact that she hummed in contentment as the ache faded and went lax in his hold was just a bonus.

Only when Ren pulled out of her head, leaving his fingers trailing down her pale pink cheek, did Kidara seem to notice his presence. She turned to him, a confused and half-terrified expression on her face. Ren looked back with carefully constructed blankness. “Lord Ren,” she finally said, her voice low and hoarse from disuse.

Ren ignored the spike of lust the sound instilled in him. “Lieutenant.”

Kidara looked away, her brows nearly meeting as she fought to think clearly. “This is the medbay, isn't it.”

A slow stroke of his palm up her bare arm. “It is.”

“How did I get here?”

“What is the last thing you remember?”

Her eyes pinched shut as she thought, as if the very act of remembering were painful. “Fuzziness. Yelling. Shaking. More yelling. Something shiny, smooth.” She stopped, trying to raise a hand to her aching head but giving up when the effort was too tiring. She sank further into Ren's embrace, then went rigid. “Whatever those pirates injected in me...this is still part of that, isn't it? This isn't real.”

He was genuinely confused. “Why do you say that?”

“You wouldn't be here like this.” 

It was almost disturbing how little effort he needed to exert to keep her in place when she tried to move away. She eventually stopped trying to struggle and flopped back against his chest with a tired sigh. Ren brushed his mouth against the edge of her ear. “Like what, lieutenant?”

“You wouldn't be holding me like this. There'd be a lot more bruising if this was real.”

His fingers tightened on her waist in response as if she had posed a challenge. Suddenly aware of the closeness of his stubbled cheek to her smooth one, Ren rubbed it against her until he was sure that dusty pink skin would be closer to red when he pulled away. The sharp breath she drew in at the sensation was a familiar one by now. “Do you still require convincing, my little soldier?” he murmured into her ear before biting at the soft lobe.

He could feel the surge of heat that shot through her body at the sensation; it hadn't taken him very long to catalog all of her most sensitive spots and exploit them. In her weakened state she couldn't help her reaction to his teeth on her flesh. “I suppose,” she said through a shaky breath, “this is real enough.” A heavy silence descended over them then, only broken by the soft noises of equipment and the occasional hum of a droid as it attended to other patients. “How long have I been here?” she asked moments later.

“Three days.”

She stiffened. “And...you've been here the whole time?”

“Of course.” _You're mine._ The thought remained securely in Ren's own head, but even putting the feeling into those two words set a possessiveness in his very bones that promised pain and death for all who tried to take her from him. 

Kida hummed at the affirmation, one finger absentmindedly stroking over the back of his hand. “Well, that's unexpected. Not the weirdest thing I've ever been through.”

Hmm. Interesting. Normally, Kidara was reluctant to share anything personal, including giving him such an easy opening to delve deeper. And he had to admit, he was curious. “What would that be, then?”

A flash of black and silver crossed over their Force link. A spatter of red. A cold sense of accomplishment. “I killed one of my instructors at the Academy.” Well. That was a surprise. Ren tilted his head to look at the side of her face. There was no remorse, no sign of regret in her tired expression. As submissive and low-key as he had known her to be, this was like looking at a completely different person. His curiosity grew, but he waited for her to continue on her own; pushing too hard would only make this more difficult than it needed to be, and he'd already spent enough energy putting her mind back together just to take it apart again to satisfy himself.

When she didn't speak again for a long moment, Ren carded his free hand through her hair, watching as her eyes fluttered shut at the touch. “What was so strange about it?” he whispered gently.

“That I didn't feel anything.” She must have sensed his shocked confusion; rather than explain further with words, she grasped the hand that had stilled in her hair and brought it to her temple. Ren understood her intent and pressed two fingertips against the soft skin, then focused his mind as carefully as he could manage on the newly-repaired one of the lieutenant.

_The man was less than a decade older than her, yet he was already an instructor at the Academy. Military history, with an emphasis on the Galactic Empire's successes and shortcomings. His youth, conventional attractiveness, and his passion for the subject he taught made him a favorite of many recruits. But not all. Others knew there was a devil behind those dark eyes and wry smile._

_Kida had first heard the stories from a cadet she had met only once in passing on her first day. A Zabrak female three years her senior, she had asked the newbie what class she had first. Her friendly smile had fallen at the answer. She didn't explain the shift in expression at first, but eventually relented at Kida's concern for her health, worried she might ill. The Zabrak had glanced around, making sure they were out of earshot of others, then warned Kida to keep as far away from Major Denal as possible, to not draw his attention to her in any way. The older female had made that mistake herself, and she'd soon found herself blackmailed into an illicit affair with the man. She'd wanted to report it to the Commandant, but it had become painfully clear that anything she said against the man would be easily twisted to make her out to be the aggressor. So, she had remained silent, eventually being lucky enough to escape his class in favor of a work-study session with one of the astrophysics instructors._

_Kida had been rightfully horrified, but reluctant to believe such a tale at one person's word._

_It didn't take fifteen minutes for the major's eyes to find her in the classroom when she answered a question no one else would. It took less than three seconds for Kida to begin to believe the Zabrak's story when his gaze turned predatory._

_Some months later, Denal had made his move on her. He'd flattered her, praised her, spoke almost poetically about how beautiful she was as a half-Zeltron_ (Ren forced himself to not wrench away from the memory in fury at the man's audacity) _. Kida had tried to excuse herself from the empty classroom, but the major had taken her wrist in a durasteel grip. He'd threatened to lower her marks from their top position, or even simply take her whether she liked it or not. He'd given her two days until the next class to decide which fate she preferred._

_Wracked with overwhelming fear, doubt, shame, and indecision, Kida had turned to the boy who had become her closest friend over the months. Lennox Adair had become immediately protective, offering to go with her to report the harassment to the Commandant, to give the major a few choice words of his own, anything at all to spare her pain and suffering. Instead, Kida had simply asked him to accompany her to the library. Lennox had proven an excellent coder and promising slicer in simulations, and she'd asked him to put those skills to the test hacking into the Academy's records._

_They'd found reports of several students over the years complaining of “untoward advances” and “unbecoming behavior” from Denal, but all of the reports had been worded to make the victims seem at fault. Male, female,_ _intersex,_ _non-binary, the gender apparently didn't matter to Denal. What stood out, however, was that all of the victims were non-humans. Zabrak, Twi'lek, Mirialan, even a boy with Neti ancestry at one time. The discovery had turned Kida's sensitive and compassionate heart to ice. She had made her decision._

_She'd gone to Denal's quarters, her expression impassive when he admitted her inside with a sly, smug grin._

_A line of silver glinted in the low light. Black, that of a First Order uniform, filled her hyperfocused vision. Bright red shot out from around the shining silver. Hot, viscous fluid spattered across Kida's face. She didn't flinch._

_What seemed like hours later, Major Denal lay dead at her feet, blood gushing from multiple wounds in his neck. Kida left him there, only concerned with cleaning his blood from her skin and disposing of her knife._

_She sat through the memorial service, as collected and serene as was expected of all cadets. The class that Denal had headed quickly went to another officer, an older woman with greying hair and the beginnings of wrinkles around her eyes._

_Kida smiled to herself throughout the entire lecture._

Ren withdrew from the memories with something akin to awe. He remained silent for several long moments, simply staring at Kidara's profile, watching for any twitch, any sign of emotion from her. There was none, only the feeling of having completed a mission.

“I've never told anyone about that,” Kida confessed quietly. “As vile as he was, murdering a First Order officer is never looked upon too kindly.” Her words seemed to finally catch up to her, her body going rigid and a hand gripping Ren's wrist. “Please don't tell anyone about it. I'm not sorry for what I did, but I'm not in any hurry to sign my own death warrant. _Please_ , my lord _._ ”

As if he would divulge such a wonderful secret, let anyone else have a piece of this woman that she'd kept to herself. “On one condition,” he almost growled. His fingers returned to her temple, the tips just barely caressing the vulnerable skin. “Show me how you looked with his blood on your face.”

The images he was met with were more beautiful than he could have imagined. Kida had cleaned the blood away while looking into a restroom mirror, but not before taking a moment to observe herself. There was only a kind of fascination in her mind ( _huh, not as disgusting as I thought it might be_ ), no revulsion, no terror, no horror. Her large, wide eyes were cold, her full lips set in neutral line. The bright arterial blood that striped her rosy face made her resemble some battlefield fury, an exacter of unfeeling justice and vengeance. Even as she began wiping it away with a warm cloth it only smeared across her skin, as if Denal might have reached up and painted it over her cheeks with his dying breath.

Kidara was _radiant._

Ren didn't have the voice to say as much when the memory ended, but the sharp, had bite he gave the meat of her neck expressed his appreciation for the image better than words. Kida gasped in surprise at the first touch of his teeth, then bit back a full moan when he began sucking at the flesh in earnest. His erection pressed insistently against her back the more she squirmed. “Have you any idea what you do to me, my little soldier?” he breathed into her ear.

Wicked girl that she was, Kida carefully rolled her hips back into his. “I'm beginning to understand, Master Ren.”

He was just about to devour that sinful mouth when the curtain was pushed to one side and a medic approached. “Oh, good,” she said, either ignorant or uncaring of what she had just interrupted. Ren glared at her. “You're finally awake, lieutenant. How do you feel?”

Kida shifted to sit up more, but Ren's arm tightened around her waist to keep her still; no need to exacerbate his arousal with an unwanted audience. “Ready to get out of this medbay, ma'am,” Kida replied, pointedly ignoring the man's warning growl behind her.

“Well, let's get you checked out and see if you're ready to be cleared to return to duty.”

It took more willpower than he cared to admit for Ren to extract himself from the bed so the medic could conduct her evaluation. He was impatient to have Kidara to himself, coherent and responsive after so long in silence. The only thing keeping him from simply throwing her over his shoulder before she could be cleared to leave was the constant reminder that she would be his soon enough. Just a few more minutes and he could lock her away for hours without interruption. Just a few more minutes...

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk what I'm doing anymore! Lots of introspection and insecurity and a dash of smuttiness in this one :3

The only kind of welcome Kida had expected when she returned to the  _Finalizer_ was one of little fanfare, one mostly focused on Captain Strupe and the success or failure of negotiations with the Chiss. Everything would return to normal within minutes: she'd be back at her station running translations and occasionally allowing herself to be used as 'stress relief' for Lord Ren. Back to normal.

Finding herself pressed into the Knight's bed for hours on end with every ounce of pleasure and energy being wrung out of her certainly wasn't a possibility in her mind. However, the moment she was cleared to leave the medbay (and had stepped into a quick sonic shower to rid her skin of the days' old grime that had built up during her unconsciousness) Ren had practically herded her to his quarters and proceeded to lavish every inch of her body with attention. Attention that, for once, wasn't rooted in rage and frustration. It was passion, genuine and burning hot, that led his hands and lips over her flesh. That anger was still there (she idly wondered if he might ever be rid of it, or if it was simply a part of his very soul), but rather than dominate his actions this time, they took a backseat to some strange mix of emotions that she couldn't identify.

One thing was certain, however: something had changed in their...relationship, if it could be called that. It had first been noticeable after she had cornered him in that conference room to take back her dignity and confidence. Now, after several weeks of separation, there seemed to be some kind of undercurrent of desperation, like he was trying to prove to himself that they both were real, alive and real.

Ren had refused to let her out of his sight for too long once his door locked behind them. If he wasn't keeping her locked in his arms in his bed, he was coaxing her to lie back against his chest in an obscenely large tub in his private 'fresher (real running water, a luxury commodity in the void of space, was apparently a perk of the higher-ups). He rarely spoke, but his eyes seemed fixed on every tiny movement Kida made.

'Confused' didn't even  _begin_ to cover how Kida felt about this shift in his attitude.

Trying to figure out anything about Kylo Ren was nearly impossible on a good day, though that didn't stop her from trying to fill the bouts of silence with thoughts of why he was doing any of this. Inevitably, those thoughts led back to her previous lovers, making her brow furrow and her lips turn down as she recalled the pain those relationships had caused her. Her frown deepened as she wondered if she was merely repeating history with Ren. Did he truly care for her, or was he simply relieving a different kind of stress? Or exerting his possession of her body after her stint of captivity? The man could have anyone aboard the  _Finalizer_ he wanted, whether willing or not, so why did he pick her now? The thought that perhaps he was using his power with the Force to control her into merely thinking she was in his bed of her own volition lived only a few seconds; it wasn't impossible, but the very idea was so deplorable Kida refused to acknowledge it any further. Which then begged the question once again: did Kylo Ren actually care anything about her or not? Her head was starting to hurt with all this circular thinking.

The fingers pressed against her stomach flexed then, drawing her tighter into the steadily rising and falling chest against her back. Soft lips touched her nape just below her hairline, and she breathed in sharply through her nose. She immediately hated herself for making the quiet noise. She hated so much about this situation.

Since she was old enough to know what love was (and not the kind between a child and her parents), Kida had dreamed about finding someone to give her heart to, who would give theirs to her in return. Physical intimacy for her had always been something equated to love, or at the very least a deep affection. Sure, she had had less-than-pure thoughts about actors and schoolmates and the random attractive person she would see in passing. But those were just thoughts, fantasies. It wasn't until she'd met Raidyn that she'd wanted to share everything of herself with another. And she'd thought he'd felt the same about her...until he'd looked at her with restrained disgust and asked her to look away from him when she had invited him into her bed, her blushes and smiles dissolving into distress and confusion at the request.

He'd never looked her in the eye after that. His gaze would always land on her nose or the space between her eyebrows or somewhere in the middle space between them. When she'd finally worked up the courage to ask why he suddenly found her hard to look at, he'd told her that they never should have slept together, that she was too clingy and needy and that just because they'd fucked didn't mean they were 'an item'. Not to mention how her eyes were the thing he'd been uncomfortable with in bed. “They freak me out,” he'd said. “Like you're looking through me or something.”

Raidyn had broken her heart, along with the way she'd thought of sex as a universal physical expression of love. That was also the first time she'd learned how to be ashamed of the way she looked, not that she could do much to change it regardless. She'd never felt more naïve and stupid...

...until Cam. Despite the hurt Kida had endured with her second lover, at least he had been simpler to understand: he liked everybody, he liked sex, he liked sex with everybody. She'd cursed herself and her idiocy for believing that she was something special. To Cam, she was just another body. Yes, he may have liked her in his own way, but not the way she had him, not in the way she'd desperately wanted.

Neither man had wanted a future with her. She'd begun to wonder if there was something wrong with  _her_ , if she exuded some kind of energy or chemical scent that ensured she only found short-lived joy with people who cared not a bit about her. Her resolve to avoid romantic feelings for any others lasted through the months leading up to her enrollment in the First Order Academy, and hardened with the experience with Major Denal.

Of course, Kylo-pfassking-Ren had to go and muck it all up.

Kida was just grateful for any kind of connection by the time he had backed her into a wall and she'd raised no objection to his hands on her touch-starved body. So grateful that she forcibly shoved down any shame and longing that dared lift its head in regards to the Knight. This whole arrangement was just a means to an end, the relieving of stress and anger and loneliness. Nothing more.

So why did a tiny part of Kida, a part that she had thought locked away long ago, want so much for it be more?

A stab of pain above her left eye snapped her out of her own head and back into the present. The distraction was welcome, but it still hurt. She lifted a hand to press at the aching spot, only to find another beating her to it.

Relief flooded through her when the headache receded at the touch of warm, callused fingertips to her forehead. The fingers slid over her skin to pull a lock of dark silver hair behind her ear. “You're thinking very loudly.”

The rumble of Ren's voice in her ear and against her back made Kida shiver. It was the most he'd said in hours. “I'm sorry.”

Ren gave a soft hum, a simple acknowledgment, before rolling to lie on his back. Kida immediately, against her better judgment, missed his warmth. She carefully turned to face him, instantly struck by how unfairly attractive the man was. His eyes were closed, so she took the opportunity to study him, to  _really_ look at the angles and lines and planes of him. It occurred to her that as much as they touched each other and took their pleasure, she'd never really  _touched_ him. Physical contact had always been more to ground her from the sensations he caused in her or to urge him on when her own desire outweighed her self-consciousness. She'd never explored him as he did her.

_Just kriffin' say it, woman,_ she yelled at herself.  _You're tired of being so hesitant, aren't you? You liked being aggressive and in charge before, right? So just say it._

A deep breath as she sat up. “Lord Ren.” Good. Her voice didn't shake.

“Kylo.”

That one word was enough to send her back into a state of wary confusion. “What?”

Warm, impossibly deep brown eyes cracked open to look at her. “Call me Kylo.”

His voice and his energy remained calm, no inflection or change that indicated he meant anything by what he said. But a fuzziness bloomed in Kida's chest nonetheless. Military life had taught her that first names were like dirty little secrets in the eyes of the Order, never to be used except in the most dire (or private) moments. For Ren to encourage her to use his given name...something close to happiness and honor filled her heart. A tiny smile turned up the corners of her lips as her fingertips gently touched the center of her chest. “Kida.”

The smile dropped, replaced with the heat of embarrassment, when the Knight tilted his head. Kida squeezed her eyes shut and hunched her shoulders, trying desperately to make herself smaller, invisible. What a stupid, childish thing to say. Of course he knew her name. Why did she always say the dumbest things?

A brush of rough but warm skin against her arm kept her from further self-chastisement (thankfully). She glanced down to see Ren's fingers trailing over her elbow down to her wrist, his eyes following the movement. “You wanted to say something.”

Nervousness began to settle in her breast once again at the rumble of his voice. But she refused to let it overrun her this time. Steeling herself against the consequences, Kida forced the words out: “Lord Re- Kylo, may I...may I touch you?” His silence and the blank look he gave her was more than enough to let her know that he didn't understand what exactly she meant. She wished for the ability to better articulate herself without being overcome with fear and shame. “I mean...not just  _touch_ , but...”  _Explore. Discover. Map. Memorize._ She pushed those words to the front of her mind as hard as she could, willing them to be heard by the man beside without her having to say them.

Thankfully, he seemed to hear her, or at least understood what she tried to say. He lifted the hand closest to him and set it on his shoulder. Kida let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, and began to slowly draw her fingertips over his skin.

She kept her gaze fixed on the movement of her hand, wanting to burn the combined sensations of the sight and feel of him into her memory. For all of his rage and power and strength, Kylo Ren was a beautiful man, one of the most stunning humans Kida could remember ever laying eyes on. Wide shoulders, a broad chest, muscles shifting and rippling under every inch of pale skin. Not even the scars that dotted and lined his flesh could make her think of him as anything other than alluring; most were colorless and smoothed by time. Others were still tinged a light pink, in the final stages of healing. She traced a longer one down his left bicep, quickly forgetting the scar altogether in favor of the lines and curves of the muscle beneath the skin. Stars, he could crush the life from her with one embrace if he so chose. The thought wasn't as frightening as it should have been. If he'd wanted her dead he would have done it long ago.

Tracing the sweep and dip of his collarbone, Kida let herself sink into an almost hypnotic state. She kept her touches light, what would almost be called teasing in any other circumstance. An absurd thought crossed her mind when she reached his pectoral:  _I miss painting my nails._ She smiled to herself as she imagined what color she would paint them first if she ever got the chance to do so. A solid royal purple, maybe? A prismatic silver, shining rainbows when the light hit them just right? A sparkling metallic gold? Which color would look better pressing into Kylo Ren's sweat-slicked skin?

The rise and fall of the Knight's abdomen with each breath substituted that imagined distraction for a very tactile one. Oh goddess, he was a work of art. All cut lines of hard muscle and utter perfection. One finger delicately tracing the line of soft, dark hair beneath his navel, she wondered how far he would allow her to go, how far she would allow  _herself_ to go. The heat that burned in her cheeks when his lower abdomen twitched at her touch decided for her.

Both hands rose up to his neck, pleasantly surprised to find his pulse thudding just a bit quicker under her fingers. Kida didn't let her eyes move farther up than his chin even as her fingertips slid up the curve of his jaw to the relative softness of his cheeks. Raidyn's dislike of her gaze so long ago had affected her deeply enough to make her afraid of disgusting Kylo the same way; she didn't want to see whatever was in his expression, especially after so many hours spent locked together between bouts of exhaustion. If he imagined she were someone else or that he were somewhere else all together, well, she didn't want to know about it. She was happier pretending that she was what he wanted, that she was wanted at all.

The brush of soft hair against her knuckles stopped her melancholic train of thought from going any further. She loved Kylo's hair whispering through her fingers like Bespin silk. A contented sigh slipped past her lips as her eyes closed. She almost ran her fingers over his forehead, but instead traveled to the arch of his nose; he wrinkled his brow when he was uneasy or displeased and she had no desire to learn if that skin was furrowed or not. She lingered on his nose for a few moments, recalling how handsome and proud his profile was, then drifted lower to his lips.

It wasn't fair, really. No one should have lips so plush and full. No one with as many angles and edges as Kylo Ren should be allowed such soft hair and lips, such soulful, expressive eyes. Not only that, but no one who did indeed possess such attributes of beauty should be allowed to hide them away behind a mask. But perhaps that was the whole point. The mystery of his appearance to others surely added to their fear of him.

Kida didn't realize how far into her thoughts she'd gone until the lips she'd been blindly admiring touched hers. Her eyes flew open in surprise to find Kylo's face very close to hers, the tips of their noses almost brushing. His eyes were focused on hers, not looking at her eyebrows or her nose. The intensity in his gaze would have had her shrinking in on herself, but there was something...off. Was he...hesitating? Why would he be suddenly unsure?

He broke the line of their gazes first to follow the movement of his thumb across her bottom lip. The gesture was almost painfully intimate, drawing a shuddering sigh from someplace deep and achingly lonely within her. She wanted to chase the feeling, to nuzzle into his wide palm in an attempt to prolong the fantasy. But before she could even think to move, Kylo cupped his other hand on the back of head and drew her into a surprisingly gentle (from him) kiss.

If nothing else, the way Kylo kissed was more than enough to have her interest. Even deep in the throes of his rage, his kisses were always brimming with passion, the need to claim and possess, almost as if he were trying to prove a point. Now he seemed to be trying to prove a different one. If Kida had been more clearheaded and free of her own self-doubt, she might have been able to decipher his emotions at least fractionally. Instead, his emotions grew stronger and more overwhelming, crashing into and over her own like a tidal wave. Not that she minded in the slightest.

The slide of his tongue against hers distracted her from the way he carefully gripped one wrist and pulled it down. Only when her hand connected with something slick, velvety, and _hot_ did she break from his lips with a small gasp. His long fingers closed hers around his hard cock, precome already glistening at the tip and sliding down the shaft, and moved their hands together. The brief embarrassment that made Kida's skin flush even darker vanished entirely at the sound he made just then. _Stars, do that again,_ she begged wordlessly. Another stroke of her hand granted her wish. Kylo was the first person she'd ever done this to, and once she fought down her (admittedly irrational) shyness she couldn't look away from the obscene picture their joined hands and his reddened cock presented. It was entrancing.

Kylo guided her hand along his length for a few moments, showing her how to adjust her grip and pace, telling her with sighs and low moans how he liked when she tightened her fist on the upstroke. An experimental twist of her wrist at the head had him digging his fingers into her back, adding more scratches and bruises to those he'd already left since her return to the ship. Deciding he must have liked that, Kida made a daring decision to press her thumb into the steadily leaking slit at the tip. Just before his teeth sank into her shoulder to muffle the sound, Kylo kriffin' _growled_. Despite herself, she was delighted! It was a new kind of power she'd never felt before, to have such an effect on someone. What else could she do to elicit a similar reaction? What if she...?

She almost screamed when he bit harder into her flesh; the combination of sucking on his earlobe while pulling his foreskin down to expose the sensitive head to her curious fingers had him thrusting sharply into her hand, a scream of his own muffled by skin and bone.

_**Again.** _

That one word reverberated through her mind until even her spine tingled from the raw, desperate power behind it. Pain and pleasure both sent her into a spiral of need and desire; knowing that she could bring this side of Kylo Ren out made her want to try even harder to have him outright begging.

She'd deal with the bruises and teethmarks and any broken skin later. This was going to be a fun night (or day...whichever).

 

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe it's just the flu currently kicking my ass, but my brain finally just said "fuck it, just post the nonsense" so here we are. I never intended for anyone other than my two very best friends to ever see this, let alone know of its existence, but the more I write it, the more okay I feel about it (sorta). I dunno. Whatever. Here ya go.


End file.
